Dracula: A Gothic Romance
by General Spielsdorf
Summary: Based on the 1958 Classic Hammer Film. Dracula comes to town with a taste for vengeance and for the blood of beautiful women. Doctor Van Helsing must find and destroy the monster.


Dracula:

A Gothic Romance

Opening Reel

Having conquered the sun the moon arose from the lip of the world. Under the silver light of her gilded beams the Dragon was sleeping, nestled beneath the first glimmering stars. Shadows rippled in the forest as Selene climbed gracefully into the heavens, her beautiful face a great burnished argent disc. As she climbed her light shone lambent and supernal, and it filtered between leaf and branch and sturdy trunk. Below the moon the earth curved in an arc, and all the glades and valleys and the forest, from canopy to carpet were sung blue-silver beneath her radiant, resplendent rays. Lower still, deeper than the skin, deeper than the tree roots, under steadfast slate and boulder, the Dragon had sunk its claws into the earth. Even as the Dragon slumbered its claws gripped beneath the epidermis of the world, probing to the hot core at the centre of the world, holding the spinning globe fast. Illumined in the glow celestial the Dragon's finned back stretched into an arched horizon of rippling, towering stone. The panoply of the Alps was a black silhouette against the silver blue and ultramarine sky. The Dragon had laid down its head and folded up its wings, and under their shelter the valleys and plains of the earth's skin wrinkled into a wide and undulating landscape. Its veins were the rivers that flowed into distant oceans, its muscles and sinews were the polder and the sheer cliffs and its belly was the vast impregnable stomach of the planet. The Dragon had been born of fire at the moment of creation, and that fire burned unto forever, a fire that had raged eons ago when a star had burst and unknowable forces had coalesced solidity from the dust of spaceless space. The Dragon and its being were the stuff from which all and everything had been formed, all and everything before there was anything. For the Dragon _was_ the earth.

A restless wind sighed icily over the Dragon's spine. Trees on the alpine slopes shivered as the wind caressed and nudged their sturdy trunks. These ancient Cambrian pylons had roots that ran deep into the ground, cracking through boulders and ever spreading as they probed to the subterranean realms of Hades and down. The trees were hardy and steadfast, their tips tall and phallic, their roots clinging to the everlasting scales of the Dragon until the ascent thinned their growth and cold slate replaced bark, cone and needle. An illimitable age had watched their growth upon the mountainside, had observed the miracle of death and rebirth, of shoots and roots and high reaching branches like dark arms that wished one day to tear down the sky. A millennium blinked by but time was as nothing to this wooded labyrinth of bark and leaf. The forest had known many entities to come and go throughout the passage of time. In its towering heights the owl roosted and the serpent quietly slithered, the widow spun her woven trap and the beetle clicked a staccato rhythm. From its hidden depths the wolf sung a plaintive aria to the moon. Sometimes a bird fell amid the fallen leaves; sometimes a beast crawled into the shadows to lie down and die. When this happened the worms worked furiously in the shades, devouring the foliage; the flesh and the feather, the hide and the horn and the tooth until nothing existed but the trees.

On the flesh of the Dragon, in the dappled camouflage of the branches, the night world moved imperceptibly as if within a dark glass. Elusive shapes they were, composed of uncertainty, secretive and dim, squirming and writhing with vague, half-etched images made manifest in the shards of broken moonlight. These phantasms were half-glimpsed things that vanished before the eye could give them solid shape or form, things that were hardly real, hardly tangible. The forest was full with them, overflowing. Stealthily alive was the wood, alive with an ever-shifting army of spectres and fantastical mirages that lurked and stalked in the dark. If the eye were quick enough these phantasms might be caught in the vision peripheral, occluded, shimmering shapes fleetingly imagined and then vanished into the nothing that had spawned them. One might see the lurid flame of a red, red eye or catch the blur of a velvet wing in the tops of the branches. The night was alive with things that were cast in pitch, lurking in the dark silences of this shadow-strangled realm. These unnamed entities pursued and hunted each other, slithered and crept and flew, mutated by the darkness and driven on by unknown forces. They were night's denizens, things that might have crawled up out of some horrible infernal pit, preferring the dark places of the nightmare over the shining light of day, hidden by verdurous trunk and twisting roots, waiting in their shaded lairs to pounce and consume an unsuspecting victim. Some had been given familiar names like 'wolf' and 'bat', and others, the Lord spare he whosoever spoke the words aloud, appellations that might only be sounded in the mouth of madness.

The Dragon was known by many names.

A chill wind shivered through the interlaced and vaulted heights of bough and branch seeking for one such abomination; its whisper a withering malediction breathed into the air. Yet the forest liked its secrets and it would concede nothing, not even to the wind. This night, like endless nights gone before, the wind was agitated among the ancient trunks, chilling this dark and hushed theatre in its tireless wanderings. It sighed about these scaly, wooded towers and it sang a strange song, like something living, something longing, winnowing free loose bark and dry sprigs, seeking in and under and through, leaving nothing untouched in its quest. Its voice called insistently, darkly and demanding to something only it knew would answer, but no answer was returned. Impatience was the wind's vulgarity and its pitch rose as it rankled and sieved through decaying foliage, through the high boughs and the shadows. Yet even though it shuffled mould and decay, its search was futile and it found not what it sought, at least not here in the forest. The sylvan world would not tell, would yield only emptiness and ultimately nothing and so the wind resolved to leave the wood and to continue someplace other, someplace higher, to scale the steep slope of the mountain with a longing that it should ever onward and ever upward to where the air grew thinner and the earth reached for the sky. Along its path there were ancient caves that gaped like open mouths in its ascent, cold, deep hollows in the rock that could make the wind's voice sing like wondrous pipes as it rose into the ether. The strange music it orchestrated sounded in a nightmare vortex, syncopated with the howl of the wolf and the rustle of nocturnal wings. As spindrift it reached for the moon, spun a dozen revolutions about the mountain peaks before it blew at length upon stones not hewn by nature. It whirled about smooth, tall pylons and rippled through the sculptured plumage of stone eagles, it reeled along a bridge of splintered timber and tightly packed stone and it paused ever so briefly upon the lip of a descent into an ultimate and irrevocable darkness. Stillness held the world in thrall then, a stillness that froze all life rigid. Even the ever-shifting entities in the forest became immobile and fearful and held to the darknesses and would not be espied. Stillness shivered in silence.

What the wind had sought was here, high up on the mountaintop. It lay in the gibbous cradle of a great castle's bowels, cleverly concealed from all eyes, even those that could see in the dark. It had slept the daylight hours away for six centuries, or longer perhaps, rigid in its mythic slumbers, untroubled by the countless eons that had whirred through the great clock wound by Kronos. This thing was the spawn of shadows and in the shadows it was untouchable, anchored at the tenebrous apex of the forest, that place where no man ventured. It rested in a cradle over-sprinkled by stars and nothing could reach it, touch it or dare challenge it. As it slept it appeared unmoving, oblivious to the dark song of the night and did not waken, did not open its eyes, and the wind having come upon its bower longingly kissed the smooth carved stone that covered it. The wind sighed lingering, elated that it had at last found that for which it had searched. Time to awaken, the wind softly goaded, but the creature's face, though hidden beneath a veil of shadows, remained an unmoving and unresponsive mask of ivory. There were no perceptive ripples in its skin, no undulations that creased and twitched cheek or brow, and there was no indication that a restless living force was animate in its countenance at all. Only the shades were ceaseless, passing over the impression of a firm jaw line and tightly shut eyes, of red lips on the brink of opening unto a snarl or a scream. This mask was crowned with jet locks blacker than the mouth of midnight. Its form was bound in crepe. Though all this was only an _impression_ of form and that form was not tenuous, not quite real.

In the broken pools of moonlight that filtered in through the one stained glass portal of the chamber where it slumbered, fleshless things could be glimpsed, the length of what had once been a thigh, the yellowed, curved remnants of a ribcage and the long tapered slivers of pointing, accusing fingers. These ghastly remnants were its companions during the hours between dawn and dusk, throughout the long and cyclic seasons of lost centuries. Light from noon of day and noon of night would glimmer weakly at the lip of that window, glistening on the cruel, icy, dripping teeth of winter and trembling in the spangled gems of dew or rain, casting within only a feeble glow. Shadows reigned in that place, horrible, drifting eddies and coal-dyed darknesses, palpable and blacker than the blackness- moving shades and inky hues splashing the walls, colouring the stale atmospheres that stank like the grotto of a wolf's mouth.

On this very spot unhallowed, now covered by the impenetrable stones of this dungeon the creature had once died and merged with the Dragon. Under a similar moon it had been reborn after dark, birthed in a suite of shadows redolent with the stench of the grave and then smothered under a pall of darkness. It had not been a birth as humans conceive birth; for in the sombre shadows its new 'life' had come into being like a thought is conjured, somehow existing but intangible, a black spark in absolute pitch. Emerging in an instant from a dark womb and as elusive as the night is black it cleaved unto the dark during the daylight hours, still as a stone, unmoving, like a corpse frozen in rigor. The thing had been given new laws by which to abide. Those doctrines proclaimed that it would fear the notion of God for it now had no soul and that it would not know death's peace. One life lived and one soul granted, and the creature harboured a black hatred for the Almighty. God proclaimed that it could no longer walk by daylight and so it inhabited only the shades of crypt and mausoleum. In one such rotting bed it reposed as the dead repose, beneath a grey, cereous shroud that covered its form and concealed it from the light, as if to hide, or perhaps to be hidden by purpose, to be undiscovered, never looked upon, never found. Waking unto light was not to be its charted destiny and it's writhing in a bower of shadows kept it secret in the cradle of un-being. This thing had been locked into day-gilded slumbers but it was now night and its sleep comprised what in others would have induced dreadful dreams, dreams that squirmed beneath its eyelids. Those dreams were little slices of dark places that were far, far away from this enchanted mountain. It had wandered to this place in a dream a long, long time ago, and it had lay down in death. From that death it had evolved a new life and that life burned as a phantasm. In its new undeath it dreamed of places where the land and the people and the titanic bowl of the great world merged together all as one foolish illusion that drowned in a scarlet river of death. It commanded death, King Pest, Ruler over Ravens, and yet even it dreamed the elusive face of love, for although it was sovereign over all dead things, it did not command the caprice of love.

Not one living being ever ventured near its lofty domain, a forgotten Keep that stood on the uppermost tip of a mountain, inflexible against the elements and impregnable; thus nothing ever challenged it, ever changed its symmetry. This place, a haunted palace, was a phantom, slate-coloured sliver hewn from a rock spewed forth from some distant upheaval of the world and within the depths of its secret chambers the darkness denied all knowledge of the real world. Isolated the castle kept unto itself its shrouded revelation and below it the world plunged into an abyss, a ghostly and malignant valley pleated and covered over with the thick green-needled spires of spruce and conifer, guarded by the Dragon that spread over the skin of the world, who might awake at any time and raze ruin and misfortune. The rutted remains of a road snaked through that forest but it was soon lost and swallowed up and obliterated. No one ever travelled up that road. No one but the fool ever came here. Secure against the prying eyes of the world the thing slept in its ebon bower and did not stir, for it and the Dragon were kin, given a code to existence that humankind could never understand.

After an eternity had passed the wind became despondent and drifted off in cold, sullen silence and did not return, but as it departed the moonlight shone through the singular portal illuminating one word carved into the stone. That word was a name- a name that conjured, to thought, all that belonged to the night and to the shadows, all that was the Dragon.

For the letters that spelled out that terrible appellation were splashed with blood, and that name was:

**DRACULA**

Reel One

In the late afternoon of what had been a very long day a rickety calèche breasted the high, rugged summit of the Transylvanian Alps. There still remained icy caps on the high twin peaks of God's Seat, cones of snow that had refused to melt, glistening blue-white glacial pyramids that peaked in the misty sky. A low wind had begun to seep over the alpine heights and was breathing a languorous path down the valley, pouring a thin, translucent veil over the sturdy, ancient pinnacles. The wind brought with it a profound anticipation of cold despite the fact that up until now the sun had been shining warmly all day and the firmament had been bright blue. Below the whirling yellow spokes of the carriage wheels, spinning at times only a scant metre from the trail's ragged edge was the plunge into the abyss. It was a long, long fall into the ravine, a fall that would smash anything into a thousand broken pieces. On the steep slopes the mountain was enveloped in the velvet green of a conifer forest, the valley far below pleated ochre, olive, and in its core, midnight. The fast and fleeting shadows of ominously gathering storm clouds were racing across the uneven gradients, staining the forest black as the waning sun sparked bronze fire through the pencilled heights of the trees. The race to nightfall would soon be over. Across the divide and majestically visible from the rutted track that took the coach upward there towered the Borgo Pass.

A presage of chill communicated itself to the passengers huddled within the carriage by the unwelcome agency of a whistling wind that permeated through any crack not sealed against the weather. These strange itinerants were knotted together in their frigid and confined space, not wanting the familiarity of touch that came with the jostling, yet contact with their fellow travellers could not be avoided. As the passengers bumped into each other they attempted to feign indifference. Upon each collision one of them would grunt, squirm and then look away through the clouded glass of the rattling windows. They were aware that the day was ending and that a storm was brewing, and they furtively watched the dimming sky. As the sun's light became diffuse, so too did a presage of doom etch itself into their worried faces.

Rumbling upward, the carriage reached a slightly wider section of the way only to turn sharply into a narrower curve, and at that point in the precipitous climb a large stone tumbled from the steep cliff. It fell to the right of the coach, spinning a tumbling revolution as if slowed by time itself, showering the vehicle with a rain of stones. With a thud it smashed against the ragged edge of the mountain, bounced and plummeted over the side, falling into the gorge, snapping a number of trees in its descent. A brief shower of pebbles peppered the driver's head, but he paid the incident no heed but continued to worry and goad his team mercilessly. From the left side window the gorge presented a splendid view of the Carpathians. _The Dragon's Spine_, as it was colloquially known, twisted though the land on a line that led north, a range of treacherous pinnacles whose highest points were the two sturdy peaks of the Borgo Pass standing inflexible against the backdrop of heaven. Crowned with icy tips, the peaks stood side by side, one slightly higher than the other. They made the imagination conjure a great gate, one that might have led to heaven, but this could not have been further from the truth. The clouds became darker, casting indelible shadows into the valley, and the shadows blended with the twilight, deepening the verdant hues, green became almost black, black became gloaming. The sky was changing from blue to primrose and then to ultramarine. It was most certainly a very astonishing view.

The carriage had been travelling all day, since the dawn arose and had changed horses twice already, and now it had crossed the Douane Station borderline at Ingstadt. There had been a delay at the border that had frustrated both the driver and the passengers, the second such delay they had experienced this day, and the lines of worry were now etched upon everyone's faces. The Douane official had found a discrepancy in the papers of one of the passengers, a Tzigane woman. Her travelling papers had not been dated correctly, and who could be certain from which province she hailed and on what day? One could never be certain with these Gypsy people, despite their ignorance and language barriers. The woman had argued in her own babbling tongue and eventually, after some gesticulating and raised voices in broken Romanian, the problem regarding her papers was righted and the carriage was again on its way.

Beyond the customs demarcation the coach driver rode his team into a wild and ungoverned hinterland. The agitation among the passengers had returned, a tense anxiety that they must be over the mountain before the setting of the sun. It was said that if you went alone in this part of the country and especially at night then you went without wit, that brigands and robbers would be the least of your dangers, that even God himself would forsake you in your foolishness. Warnings were uttered in whispers but never spoken out loud lest something dark and evil be called up by the tongue of the speaker to physically drag them off to the netherworld. Superstition held the hearts of the local peasantry in a very strong grip indeed. It was considered unwise to think that ancient fears and beliefs should be laughed at and flippantly dismissed. Perhaps this superstition seemed silly to the foreigner who knew nothing of the lore of the land, but in this isolated province it would certainly not pay to suffer ignorance. The cautionary word of advice was not to be taken with a grain of salt. This was a wilderness as mysterious and as far removed from any civilized place marked on any map and as inhospitable as the north and frozen world of the ancient race of Volsung. To those who presumed to hail from more sophisticated climes, this land was beyond mystery.

Jonathan Harker was one such stranger, viewing the spectacle of the Pass from the carriage as it strained in a desperate race against the fading daylight. Rickety and swaying perilously the carriage traversed briskly through the lowland, through forests ways with trees as tall as church spires and past lakes glistening like broken mirrors in the golden light of the sun. Twisting and turning, the road had begun a noticeable elevation as it snaked the route like a great horseshoe around the mountain. This soon pronounced the steep climb up the peak where one could partake of the spectacular vista of the Borgo Pass.

He had been jostled and pitched for hours as the vehicle flew wildly over narrow and deeply rutted roads, its team now half dead from their exertion. All thought of personal safety had obviously fled the driver's mind, speed was of the essence and the wellbeing of his passengers was but a lost priority, if indeed it had ever been one. The horses had been keeping a steady pace for almost half an hour and now, whipped to the last of their strength and speed, they were beginning to flag with the climb. Wet with sweat, their nostrils flaring, they laboured ever upward. Still the road scaled higher and treacherous as the carriage ascended the mountain along the Dragon's spine. The mountainous heights on either side rose sheer and vertical, the road delivering the travellers between two soaring alpine leviathans of slate and basalt. The Pass loomed ominously with its two towers of blackly igneous and metamorphic rock, and the road snaking through its middle bisected the Carpathians and coiled down the opposite side into the valley beyond. The view was a plunging vista, folded and pleated and covered in a thick blanket of green-needled spruce and conifer. As the coach climbed higher the air became thinner.

Jonathan took in a deep breath and held it down in his lungs for a long moment; he felt a little light-headed but for some inexplicable reason the headiness was not disagreeable, it gave him a peculiarly euphoric sensation of floating that took him momentarily away from the cramped discomfort of the coach. He let go of that breath and brushed a smear of dust from the window in a feeble attempt to obtain a clearer view. The Pass seemed so close and it was a wondrous sight, looming before them and then suddenly towering over them. It was easy to see why it was referred to as God's Seat, and 'God's Seat' was the divide between humanity and the holy, being the one and only portal through which all must pass before they could safely return to the world below. On popping springs the carriage jostled and pitched, hindered from speed now by the growing incline and the road's disrepair. Still the driver urged his two mares on, calling to the horses as if they understood his language, aware in their strong, beating breasts that time was pressing and that the light was going. The road scaled ever upward and became ever more treacherous. When the carriage had arrived at the point of ascent about twenty minutes before, there was slight momentary respite.

To Jonathan the Pass resembled a great throne. If it were God's Seat then it was aptly named with its jutting armrests and twin high backs that touched to the clouds. The late sunshine was tinging the snow on the summits rose-gold; he could imagine Christ overseeing the earth from up there, the rim of the sun a gilded aureole flaming about the Lord's noble head. Truly, it was a glorious scene and he wondered if he would be able to find the right words to describe it when he had a spare moment to record it in his diary. He turned from the window and let his eye glance over his fellow passengers, half expecting them to be as awed as he was by the scene. As if it had been rehearsed, all averted and downcast their eyes and turned their heads to their feet. The people appeared to be deliberately shielding their gaze from the world without. Not one of them now looked up. It was a bizarre and strange behaviour indeed and Jonathan could not guess at its cause.

Earlier in the day, not far from the Klausenburgh inn the carriage had run into a deep rut and shattered three spokes. The driver's companion had had to walk to the little village nestled in the hills, hopefully to return with a farmer and a wagon to convey the passengers to the inn. This had taken the best part of an hour and a half. There had been something of a heated contention between the innkeeper and the coach driver. This stopover had lasted almost three hours. As Jonathan was diligent about keeping notes in his diary, almost to the point of obsession, he had taken out his journal and recorded the incident in detail. Some men had to be sent to fix the wheel and to bring the conveyance back, but they had not returned yet and the day was drawing closer to its end. This very fact alone seemed to cause a great deal of agitation. The innkeeper's countenance began fading to pallor as the clock spiralled ever faster to sunset. Watching the man as he paced up and down began to affect Jonathan's curiosity and although he tried to fix his thoughts on other things, the atmosphere of foreboding appended any contemplation, like a presage to catastrophe. To ease this unknowable tension he turned his regard to his fellow travelling companions. They appeared most curious at first, watching suspiciously as he took the red leather bound journal from his travelling case and set out the ink well and pen on the rustic tabletop. Harker had smiled and began hesitantly to form a sentence, scratching down the date and time. Soon thereafter, and less threatened by his activity, Jonathan's fellow travellers lost interest in his writings, either gathering about the fireplace for warmth or lingering beside the landlord's awkwardly jangling music box. Pausing, nib hovering above the blank page, he glanced about the room. He saw garlic hanging from the beams, garlic flowers and bulbs bunched above the window casements and garlic twined about the struts. If not for the pungent odour the choice of decoration might have been quaint, but he understood that it plainly bore some peasant significance and entered the fact into his journal.

Of Jonathan's travelling companions, the men had joined the journey earlier in Karlstadt. The Tzigane woman had been waiting on the doorstep of the Klausenburgh inn, mumbling incoherently when a farmer's cart had brought the men into the village instead of the carriage. Once inside her tone had become more agitated and this in turn made everyone turn their attentions to the landlord. He looked at her and his expression spoke of both embarrassment and contempt, for she was of a wild and colourful appearance, dressed in a brightly coloured floral skirt, a linen blouse and a vest stitched with rich embroidery, but unforgivably, her personal body odour was just as colourful. A tattered shawl draped her shoulders, copper rings and little bells jangled at her wrists. With tanned and wrinkled skin, and with deep furrows that creased her face, the gypsy's skin was swarthy- the tone of dark amber and some of her teeth were missing. She chanted as she paced, and this set everyone's nerves on edge. Nothing she sang made any sense, and the babbling grew even more disconnected and aggressive throughout the wait. Her dialects were a jumble of discordant outpourings that rose and fell as she strode, till each subsequent rave became a continuous tintamarre. It was impossible for Harker to even describe it as language, and combined with the twitchy jangling of her costume jewellery her gibbering made no coherent sense at all. No one took a post near the woman and if she shuffled toward them they either moved or looked away. Her appearance no doubt would have inspired antipathy in any virtuous feminine breast at home but such was not the case now. The thought amused Jonathan as he listened to her incoherent mumblings. The other men ignored her, or at least tried to despite her vigorous ranting.

No conversation passed between any of the people in the carriage. Indeed they were very non-communicative, nobody had wanted to talk from the outset and all had seemed preoccupied with a terrible, almost fatal need for haste. Harker pondered over this strange attitude and had wanted to ask why the rush over the mountain, but something told him quite clearly that he would receive no answer and should cogitate this no more. The passengers only pointed with stabbing fingers at the sun, their countenances very grave indeed. Then Jonathan noted the Priest or Friar; he assumed that the man was a cleric because he wore the garb of some holy order, a dun coloured cloth with a rosary dangling from the waist rope. The man was tall and thin and sat quietly by the fireplace under the garlic, waiting intently. His eyes were a peculiar icy blue, almost glacial and each iris a pinpoint of blackest night. Despite his garb he did not seem like a man of God, his appearance was cold and positively unfriendly. Under his scrutiny one might shrivel, for his blue eyes were hard and unsettling, and he glared at Jonathan. Eventually, to Harker's relief, the man looked away. Harker then noted the other two men, the lone traveller who sat silently and the other a boastful and porcine wine merchant who seemed to find his own voice above the mad woman's. All of them made up an odd little group, Jonathan himself included, journeying from Karlstadt on business as far removed from anything concerning the dealings of his travelling companions.

The first hour in that wayside tavern passed as an eternity passes and in that horrible vacuum they were served a sparse late lunch of chicken and paprika by a pretty servant girl, Inga, while the carriage wheel was being repaired. Jonathan found the meal strangely spicy, if not basic and rustic, and thought that perhaps such Provencale tastes would not suit the table at home. Lucy would enjoy the exotic spiciness but her mother would not. He would take the recipe home but no doubt this would be the first and last time he should eat the dish. When Harker had finished his meal and sipped a glass of brandy he put aside his diary for a moment and wrote a quick letter to his friend Doctor Van Helsing, telling him that he had arrived safely in Klausenburgh and that he was, if anything, a little travel weary and slightly unsettled by the vague hostilities of the locals. He had asked the pretty serving girl if she would be so kind as to send the letter for him in the next post to Karlstadt, and she had smiled her acquiescence as she tucked the missal into her apron pocket. Jonathan had smiled back and there was a twinkle in her eyes, but the girl had dropped her own smile quickly under the landlord's grey-toned scowl. As she returned to the kitchen she cast her glance back over her shoulder, nodding as she did so and Harker knew that she would not forget to post his letter. He returned to his journal and promptly noted the Innkeeper's hostility.

To Harker, Inga's had been the only friendly face he had so far encountered in his journey into Transylvania. The gypsy woman had quietened enough to eat her lunch and a sullen gravity had fallen over the room, and that tension was evident in the twitchy countenances of everyone occupying it. After a protracted silence the wine merchant cleared his wide throat and seized upon the opportunity to make comparisons about the inferior quality of the local wine to his own. There then recommenced the heated discussion about time and haste. The Innkeeper had already informed them that their carriage had broken three spokes and would take some time to repair. This had caused much concern, the merchant could not possibly wait another day, his trip was imperative, he had stocks to purchase and vendors to trade with; the others argued that soon it would be dark and that they must hurry, they had to be over the mountain before the sun expired.

Disquieted Jonathan had put down his nib and slipped a hand into his own coat pocket and felt for the chain that Lucy had given him when he had proposed marriage. He retrieved it and held it in his palm. It glittered in the firelight. A moment after he had Left Lucy behind and departed he had removed the trinket from about his neck and placed it in his pocket. Why he had done this he could not say. He recalled that he had felt a ripple of confusion disturb his inner peace, and Jonathan did not like this. He was about to loop the chain again about his throat but an invisible pass checked him and stayed his hand. When the gypsy woman's volume had dropped sufficiently and it was relatively quiet again, it was the lone traveller who had then spoken to Harker.

"That cross," he pointed a finger at Jonathan's open palm. "Why do you not wear it?"

"Why?" replied Harker, unable to tell the man an answer to the question. People thought you were mad if you told them that you did not believe in God. In that moment of interrogation Jonathan felt most uncomfortable. He understood the superstitious belief they might have held, that to accomplish his journey he was going to need God. The thought placed him in a difficult place, for even his friend Van Helsing seemed an advocate of religious belief and yet still maintained an air of scientific conviction. Jonathan did not understand how a person could possibly acknowledge both ideas and present any form of rational argument for one or the other. Professor Van Helsing though a man driven by the externalities of science had somehow distanced himself from the internal knot of sensuality. The chivalry of romance seemed an alien concept to the Van Helsing. Perhaps Jonathan only wanted to see his mentor as faultless and pure. Yet Van Helsing, he who was so engaged in his obsessive battle for 'good', was blind to the very virtues that love commanded.

"Where is it that you are going?" had asked the traveller.

A look of horror had passed over the priest's face when the name of Jonathan's destination slipped from his tongue. The traveller's face had become a shade paler too and even the fat merchant stilled his repartee. The peasant woman jingled and jangled and proceeded to make weird signs with her hands and she began to chant one word over and over again.

"Vurdalak! Vurdalak!"

Perhaps the word was some form of prayer? Jonathan did not know. He had never heard the word before and it sounded to him like some form of corrupted Russian dialect. The woman's feral demeanour gave all the impression that she might have hailed from that region and was mad and thus a demented outcast. Maybe she was both. It didn't really matter in any case; the decision had been made to push onward.

"Vurdalak! Vurdalak!" she scolded, standing before Jonathan's table and pointing at him with a frenzied finger.

"I am sorry," Jonathan had said, apologising to the odd woman for not understanding her shrieks.

"Not..." the woman stumbled in the unfamiliar tongue of English, "not dead!" She looked around at the others but nobody responded.

Her eyes were wild and her words sent a little shiver up Harker's spine. What exactly did she mean by 'not dead'?

"This is not the city," said the man dressed as a priest, waving abruptly at the woman so that she should be silent. "You have entered the _Land of Phantoms_ and you should go with care!" He stared with hard intent at Harker.

Upon this address Jonathan had turned lamely to the landlord, shrugging, his palms open, his brow furrowed and confused. The landlord repressed a sneer and his locals shook their heads and turned their backs, none of them uttered a word, but none of them told the woman to cease her ravings. The priest looked at her sternly for a long moment, but his icy stare did not freeze her into silence. She remained blithely unaffected. Turning away he wound his fingers through the rosary that was tied off at his waist until the crucifix inched upward into his palm. His knuckles were turning white as they clenched the figure of Christ. He looked at Jonathan but he said no more.

From that moment on Jonathan had been shunned. It made him feel uneasy and horribly tainted; now all he wished was to be back in Karlstadt and not climbing the dizzying heights of a Transylvanian peak in a coach that pitched and swayed and promised to veer over a precipice at any moment.

Now, inside the careering vehicle they all held tight, pushed uncomfortably against each other and bumping shoulders when a wheel struck a rock or a pothole. When this happened, sometimes quite violently, one or the other would give an audible grunt of disgust but none had the good manners to apologise. Harker, in his good graces had not given up civility.

"These people are different to us," that was the gentle excuse that his pretty fiancée Lucy would have used, but Lucy wasn't here now and if she were she would have gently reprimanded him for his fatigued and increasingly obdurate thoughts.

He had tried to be the civil and polite Jonathan Harker that Lucy knew best and loved, but this journey had brought him face to face with such taciturnity and vaguely muttered villainies that even gentle Lucy whose sagacity and preciousness never wavering in the face of difficulty would have been hard pressed to remain without prejudice.

"Their beliefs and customs are not like ours so you must be patient and understanding."

He could picture her perfect lips as they parted and her tinkling voice as it uttered the dialogue, but it made no difference to the moment and he could not apply her wisdom to the faces that surrounded him. It was easier for him to imagine Lucy smiling and flattering his vanity, telling him that he was always "patient and understanding" when he was not. This seemed very at this particular moment and Jonathan felt slightly shamed. Lucy was an angel who always talked sense no matter what and never appeared to condescend to anyone. She was happy even when it rained and smiled for others when they were sad. Yes, Jonathan loved her very much. Yet this very fact alone made him feel like a traitor in that he could not explain but had to play at deception to explain the reasons for his journey. If she had pressed him, not that she would have done so despite the fact that they were soon to be married, he would not have been able tell her. This awful contradiction truly bothered him.

Some months ago, up upon the sea cliff, above the world and it's turbulent and yet fatuous affairs, they had taken a stroll, hand in hand. On that very spot, as the sun made its descent beyond the curvature of the earth, Jonathan had proposed marriage and Lucy had accepted. Later she had presented him with a silver chain, a rosary that she kissed gently and looped about his neck... "But…" he had begun to protest, because he wanted to tell her he was not certain that he believed in God or Christ, but Lucy silenced him by placing a slender finger upon his lips. "Wear it, my love. If not for any other reason but for your mother's sake" she had whispered, smiling as she did so, aching within her breast that he would find faith.

Jonathan had looked at the glinting crucifix and it was strange that despite his lack of faith, the bauble seemed to evoke a peculiar safety. But one needed conviction to benefit from its protection. Yet how could he believe? Was Lucy trying to convert him? If she thought his salvation in Christ was not irrevocably lost was it within her power to bring him unto it and to divine happiness? He had tried to maintain a stoic detachment but his heart was not so easily swayed. Yes, all he wanted was only to be with Lucy, though he doubted he could ever share her Christian faith. Lucy had smiled at him as if she had read his thoughts, her lips a carmine arch that glistened, her teeth like pearls. She had pulled her red hair back and tied it with a bright blue ribbon. Jonathan had wished to say to Lucy that his journey would be brief, that his business could not be put off any longer and that it was best she did not know the reasons. "Think only of our wedding day" he had reassured her as he departed, kissing Lucy's brow and trembling as he touched his fingers to her silken cheek. Looking off into the distant unfathomable horizon beyond Jonathan's shoulder Lucy had felt a strange quake ripple through the frame of her body, though she did not tell. It was almost as if she had glimpsed something other in the vague distances, a cloud perhaps that had no form, something that loomed in the air. A question sprang to her lips but she had repressed the urge to articulate it lest it taste of doom, and its meaning dissipated in the passing of a breath though it left her chill and melancholy. She had looked up into Jonathan's face and questioned him only with her eyes. Those eyes, blue as sapphires, filled with love and understanding, tortured him.

He would like to stay among the living, should providence acquiesce, and return to Lucy, to return to a promise of domestic bliss, to put aside the long hours of research that often kept him up late into the early hours of the morning, keeping him from his beloved. If what Van Helsing had said was true then he must have the fortitude to go on and Lucy must never know. It was better this way. He had told her only that he was travelling to a place outside the marked province, a strange place called Transylvania. She had repeated the word after he had said it and it had sounded like music coming from her lips, but a strangely haunted refrain full of beauty and yet with danger too. It was not unlike the howl that had just sounded ghostly in the thin air. He did not tell Lucy that in such a place as Transylvania science had no order, only superstition, and superstition bred terror and fear. He did not tell her either that he was secretly afraid to go; he did not want to admit that even to himself. Lucy would have chained her body to his person had she even suspected something amiss.

He himself only half understood let alone believed or even wanted to believe in the reasons for his journey into the Carpathians. It all seemed born of derangement, a lunatic and irrational aberration of sanity. He doubted that he could ever bring himself to acknowledge the truth of the matter and if he had not known his good friend and mentor Doctor Van Helsing better he would have surely thought it all absurd and the man quite mad. But Doctor Van Helsing had gathered what he deemed as incontrovertible evidence, albeit from that which countervailed truth, from historical tracts and folktales. These stories had throughout the passing of centuries become what most would now conceive as the distortions of a warped fantasy and men had been locked up in the Bedlam for believing less. Still Harker kept Van Helsing's faith and saved the questions of disbelief until all could be disproved. Yet this mission had been born through the artifice of cunning and both he and Van Helsing were now sworn to run counter against what could only be described as evil. This truth chilled Jonathan's heart.

The journey from the city of Karlstadt had been a bone-rattling one that had taken all day and he knew that no matter what the outcome he must not waver nor let his guard down, too much depended on his success. By choice he would not have come to this land beyond the forest, but chance had chosen him and he could not refuse. It was a case of having to do what had to be done but in his heart he would have given anything to be home, seated in his library among his books while the cold kept itself to the bleak world without. It was warm and comfortable and safe at home. This land beyond the forest was an inhospitable and dangerous terrain. Fear of the unknown stoked a chilly fire in his soul.

From far off a wolf howled, one single, solitary and mournful musical note that made the gypsy woman put her hands to her ears and once again begin her ravings. Jonathan held fast to a strap, his knuckles turning white from lost circulation, the leather looped through his fist. He looked from the grimy window but there was nothing to see, no demon wolf emerged from the cathedral of trees. A thick veil of foliage gripped tenacious roots into the steep climb beyond the opposite window, but that glass too was very filthy and Jonathan could make out little more than an ugly greenish-brown smudge. He saw no sombre pelted canine there either. The way had become quite treacherous and so very, very narrow and he saw rocks flying into the chasm, thrown from the mad revolutions of the wheels. At any moment the carriage might slide into a rut or be hurled over the jagged edge into the ravine and smashed to a thousand splintering pieces. The wolves would come then, loping from the shadow places to feast amid the wreckage. Harker struggling to shut the awful vision from his mind, could only keep his grip and give up a silent prayer in the hope that this would not occur. The way was steep and the plunge to the earth very, very deep, the stony road as slippery as winter ice.

Still the carriage climbed and once Jonathan had cried out to the driver to slow down, but his shout had fallen upon deaf ears. The man did not let up till, upon the point of exhaustion, the horses crested the Pass, their nostrils belching white flame, their lips flecked with foam. It seemed an eternity had elapsed in which Harker had endured being pitilessly tossed about, his body jarred and shaken until every bone ached, especially his arms for clinging tight to dear life.

"Please, let this ride be finished soon," he told his heart and closed his eyes to shut out the whirling vista that flew by in a smudge beyond the dirty glass. The air grew thinner and the clouds ever closer. Harker tried to think of other things, of Lucy's sweet face again but it was almost impossible to do this with his head so full of dizzying chaos.

Harker held is eyes closed tightly, if the end were to come he did not want to see the world opening beneath him like the maw of a terrible beast, and he quietly cursed the madman at the reins. Abruptly, as if in answer to his oath the coach slowed and halted but the driver did not descend from his seat. The young man relaxed his grip on the strap and peered through the smear in the glass. Outside the shadows were beginning to paint the afternoon darkly with long phantom fingers that inched across the face of the mountain and pooled about the carriage where it had stopped. The gypsy woman made an abrupt cry and stretched out a hand to Harker. Her yellowed skin traced a quick line across his forehead, and she shook her head and fell into silence. Confused, Jonathan shook his head. No one else looked either at him or out of the window.

They had arrived upon a point of transition where the way divided both left and right, between the mountain pass. In one direction the road plummeted down the opposite side of the mountain, in the other the view was lost beyond a thick screen of conifers. A few metres away to the left where the way had split into a crossroad, Harker could see a shrine in which the Virgin Mary held the baby Jesus to her breast. Beyond this the rocks became terraced, a giant's steps between which the road was squeezed into nothingness. There was a vague impression of something blackly throwing down a vast shadow from above the treetops, a spire or a turret perhaps. Harker looked up but could make out nothing definite.

With the blood surging back into his hands Harker threw open the carriage door and without unfolding the steps jumped down to the stony earth. The horses shook their manes and snorted impatiently, stamping the ground as if to pull away, despite their fatigue. There was hardly even time to rescue his travelling case. Casting Jonathan a worried look the coachman's companion quickly untied a knotted rope and gave Harker's baggage an unceremonious shove. The young man caught the larger bag before it struck the ground, the smaller hit next to his feet. Everyone's eyes were upon him and he barely had time to leap aside as the man dressed in the monk's habit slammed the coach door closed and the driver whipped the team once more into violent motion along the narrow divide. Harker had been abandoned and the night was being swallowed up by the suicide of the sun.

For the space of a moment Jonathan watched the carriage until it was gone from view. A twinge of loss tugged at his spirit. Somehow he was uncertain what to do next, as if he could not will his own feet to go forth. Doubt was creeping into his heart, yet he had no choice in this matter and it was far too late to turn home now. Besides, the only way back to the Klausenburgh inn was to walk and that was a long way, he would never reach it until the night became the morning. He stooped and picked up the smaller bag. It was covered with dust. Jonathan shook his head as if to acknowledge his predicament and set forth. He had no other choice.

The shadows of the mountains commenced a sluggish spill down from heaven and walking along the rutted way Jonathan found himself questioning his purpose. Transylvania was such an isolated and alien part of the country and though it might appear as an almost begotten blot on the map, his reasons for coming were not so insignificant. Notions that he had crossed a line, albeit an invisible and imaginary one began to trouble his thoughts, and knowing that he had transgressed into what the peasants called a 'Land of Phantoms' began to agitate his composure. Fear had begun to niggle at his insides. What would happen if he didn't reach his destination before the dark came? Another shiver tripped over his skin and he didn't like the feeling. Jonathan told himself that fear was the undoing of all things and he must quell his rising doubts.

The way was dusking and the afternoon sunshine was bound to take a sinister turn soon by squeezing the last beam of light into night. The forest would become a haunted and malignant place then, a place unfamiliar where nameless things hid in the dark recesses of the woods, indescribable things that brushed by with velvet wing and ruby eye. What might become of him and what if he did not return? He had heard a wolf howling and he did not relish the thought of meeting with one of these creatures, let alone a pack of them. He remembered a faded old tract that Van Helsing had once given him to read, a weird dissertation about wolves that changed their skins and walked on two legs like man. They were called Versipelli, creatures that grew into giants, creatures that could only be killed by the hand of a loved one wielding a weapon forged of the pure metal silver. He had given the superstition little credence then, found it difficult to believe that such things could possibly be true, but rather argued that the beast's manias were the doings of deranged men. Yet here, alone and with the shadows deepening in the woods it did not seem so fantastic a notion after all. A whisper of leather wings rippled through the indigo depths and another muted howl sounded from some lost corner of the woods. A shudder passed through Jonathan. He quickened his step and he told himself not to be afraid, to think of such things as bats and wolves was strangely foolish, instead he must keep his mind alert. Maybe he should think about Lucy, but thoughts of Lucy only conjured up longings of the soul, and a nagging desire to be elsewhere, to be home in Karlstadt. Where was his fortitude now, had it deserted him just when he had only begun? Instead to ease his mind he set about composing an entry for his diary, when he reached his destination he must commit it to paper.

_"The diary of Jonathan Harker: 3rd of May, 1885. At last my long journey is drawing to its close. What the eventual end will be, I cannot foresee, but whatever may happen, I can rest secure that I will have done all in my power to achieve success." _

Without looking back Harker took the left path, clambering over the rocks that had fallen in the trail and began a stumbling, winding ascent. It was difficult to balance his baggage at first, one case being heavier than the other and he slipped twice, almost turning his ankle, before gaining a stable footing in the rocky way. Through the high branches the wind had begun singing a diseased folly and a little chill caressed Jonathan's face. Perhaps it was instinct alone that guided him in his climb, his destination calling to him with an insistent summons, to walk this treacherous and narrow divide that lay between fear and exaltation. Long ago the passionate embrace of nature had partially reclaimed this path and the demarcation of the road had been almost lost, or denied. As he walked the slope became gradually steeper and he realised as he peered into the forest just how deep and unfathomable the black-green woods really were, with gnarled tree roots set tenaciously into the incline. It was eerie how some of the trees resembled twisted human shapes, like tortured torsos and skin-stripped skeletons with bony, out-flung arms and malformed appendages. These braches had begun forming an oppressive and arch over his head. Jonathan shuddered, thinking how like a railway cutting the path now resembled, the trees intertwining above like the ceiling of a tunnel. The rocky path became a gloomy corridor winding up the mountain and Harker hurried his step. To the right the forest disappeared into thick green shadows and to the left it was a dappled wall that thinned abruptly before it fell over the edge into the ravine. A bird screeched among the trees and Jonathan started. It had sounded so alien, so tortured that he could not help but shudder. Squinting he looked again into the inky depths. It was difficult to make out anything at all, but the shadows seemed to swirl and to dance and confuse the eye, black on black through which the rippling wind shivered seared leaves. At the forest edge there was the odd spray of what may have been flowers, blackly purple, inwardly curling buds that reminded him of burnt violets and nightshade. Or perhaps it was such that these blooms only opened dark petals when the moon was eclipsed and the world revolved in total black. None bore any resemblance to any flower he had ever seen before. In the brush he glimpsed no feather and no wing and taking a deep breath he pushed a reluctant foot forward and continued walking.

"_The last lap of my journey, from the village of Klausenburgh, proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated due to the reluctance on the part of the coach driver to take me all the way. However, as there was no other transport available, I was forced to travel the last few kilometres on foot before arriving at Castle Dracula."_

Emerging from the tunnel of trees and standing beside a low swaying fir branch, Jonathan set down the larger of his cases and pulled back the bough. The spectacle of his destination at last presented itself, a fortress that touched unto the clouds. There were still the last vestiges of late sunlight by which to see an image beautiful and yet mysterious, its symmetry painted into the backdrop of the Borgo Pass. Yet something inside Harker's soul whispered- beware. A sixth sense told him that this place was not what it appeared to be. He saw in his mind's eye once again the horrified look that the priest had thrown him at the inn.

"_The castle appeared innocuous enough in the warm afternoon sun, and all seemed normal but for one thing- there were no birds singing." _

This muted abnormality redefined the castle's whole aspect. A deathly silence clung to the stone and mortar and the view, a vision what some might have called gloriously picturesque to Harker took on an indefinably sinister tone. In the lapse between one breath and another it had become something ominous rather than innocuous, there was an atmosphere of the eerie and unsettling about the place the closer one approached. It was uncanny, almost like a rippling veil pulled over the eyes, like opening those eyes underwater and then re-surfacing, the water distorting your vision momentarily.

In utter arrogance the castle rose tall and conceited and singularly isolated on a rocky prominence as if perched at the very edge of the world. Like a faultless continuation of the rock upon which its founding slab had been set, Castle Dracula was an imposing mass of interlocking stone overlooking the bottomless pit of the earth. Unchallenged this Keep could hold its own, against violation and invasion, against any attack. Invaders could approach from but one quarter, for all other sides fell off into the valley, into nothingness. Stone eagles hovered atop two great obelisks on either side of the drawbridge; their claws spread as if with intent to swoop down upon the enemy and pluck out their eyes. The birds kept watch with stony, unblinking stares for those who might dare to breach this stronghold and their outstretched wings threw down a cold black mantle. It was not difficult to imagine that the strange cry Harker had heard in the forest might have ripped itself from the throat of a forbidding monster akin to these ominous sentinels. On the drawbridge cannon pointed toward the invader, and beneath the ancient paved stones ran cold waters fed by a glacial streamlet flowing down from the higher peak. This served as a natural moat, spilling into a spectacular fall on the castle's eastern side.

_"As I crossed the wooden bridge and entered the gateway, it suddenly seemed to become much colder due, no doubt to the icy waters of the mountain torrent I had just crossed. However, I deemed myself lucky to have secured this post and did not intend to falter in my purpose."_

Jonathan Harker shivered and paused and looked beyond the tumbling waterfall, a faded prism was trapped in the misty airs above the gushing torrent. The sun was very low and it would soon be dark and Castle Dracula now appeared very uninviting. With a suppressed shudder he cast a hesitant glance over the pointed arches and the high buttresses. Every stone belied the age of the structure. Nowhere was there evidence that the ashlars façade had been eroded by wind or weather, every line was absolute. The carved mouldings boasted minutely detailed mythological scenes and violent, victorious battles. These scenes were so vivid in their aspects that they might have been completed only yesterday. The capitals were beautiful and elaborately detailed and the battlements were like rows of perfect teeth. Centuries ago some wily architect applying a talent for sensible geometry had drawn up the lines for the foundations of this edifice. It was blood that had built the feudal towers, the blood of carriers, of carpenters, hodmen and smiths, of stone-breakers and barrow-men, of labourers impressed into service to build the house of their lord. Their masonry had withstood six hundred winters.

Although to the casual eye it seemed quite serene an unsettling aura clung to the place, something that could not be put into words and something that the eye failed to perceive. What the eye did see though was a towering structure that had cast its sterling shadow over the valley for an illimitable age and in that shadow enemies had challenged, had been fought and all vanquished. But that was a history written in another time, when the feeling of something evil had not clung to pinnacle and point. The higher turrets were obscured in cloud, its windows like eyes blinded to the dizzying fall of the wilderness that it commanded, an uncharted wildwood of trees that covered darkling slopes and rock and ravine.

Harker's glance travelled down the walls of this omnipresent chateau and stopped upon a door at the bottom of a very narrow stairwell. An odd scent permeated the thin air, drifting up through a barred grill in the portal. Harker caught it as a dusking breeze swirled up from below and along the drawbridge. It was an odour of perfume, of a florists shop, of crushed flowers but with an undercurrent of something else, something nasty. It was a rank fetor that did not abate, a sweetly sickening odour that no one could endure for long. A momentary flicker of disgust wrinkled over his face. Whatever it was that lay beyond that door hinted at corruption. Perhaps it was a midden that had not been cleaned, but its wafts ebbed into his nostrils like the murrain of blooms that had withered on a grave. Down there, thought Harker, with a premonition perhaps, was a stark and horrible revelation waiting to be discovered. It made the stillness and the solitude of Castle Dracula, elevated and dissevered from the tenuity of rest of the world, even more desolate and uninviting and Harker didn't like it at all.

Jonathan had begun to feel the stirrings of unpleasant reservations in the pit of his gut, an awful dread co-mingled with a little fear, a last warning to flee, to run and never return. He bit down on his lower lip and drew in a long hard breath. Before the space of another thought, as if the very building had somehow registered his apprehensions, the tall doors of the main entrance creaked ajar upon a shadow world deeper than the void, bidding him enter and be lost forever

Reel Two

Within the castle Harker expected to find a servant waiting beyond the door. He found no one, only shadows like coal-dyed eddies that rippled all the way up to the vaulted ceilings. It was chill within the chateau; a glacial cold swirled about his form then rushed upward into the spaceless heights. The icy draft touched his cheek with a cold caress. He peered up into the vast high darkness. Vaguely, he could just make out row upon row of sculpted ribs hewn into the smooth stone, their carved arcs disappearing as the view surrendered to black. These calcified terraces were riven with what must have been spectacular mouldings, but they were steeped in shadows. Raised galleries were punctuated by stairs and endless corridors that seemed to branch off into nowhere. Filaments of watery light showed through the slender apertures of loopholes, narrow slits high above in the gloom girded by circular stairs that ascended to infinity and possibly even beyond. Heavy beams and high transverse struts interlocked to hold the titanic structure upright and rigid in an everlasting and steadfast embrace. This great house seemed so much bigger when one stepped within its walls, for everywhere the eye could perceive the dim spaces expanded into the firmament or an abyss of distance and time. There was no doubt at all that its imposing edifice could never fall.

The first room Jonathan entered was huge but sparsely furnished; hung with massy deep blue velvet drapes, and it writhed with cloying darknesses. Harker narrowed his eyes and frowned into the gloaming. Dead silence entered with him. He looked around but all was still. It was stillness that accompanied him as he navigated room after room, and each room similar; he feared he might lose his way. All was so quiet that even his footsteps did not sound upon the flagstones but seemed absorbed by the silence; and the castle was cold and devoid of human warmth. He began to wonder if anyone really lived here at all, that perhaps his journey had been a jest conjured by a ghost; it could easily be imagined that this most certainly was a haunt for spectres. It was deserted and gave no contrary evidence that the emptiness had not been so for a long, long time. Through a wide hall he crept, now conscious of each silent footfall, almost too afraid to make any sound that might shatter the deathly pall and disturb the shadows. He turned into another corridor that led to a great double door standing slightly ajar. In the semi-dark Jonathan could just make out a crack of light spilling through those doors. What lay beyond that entry was anyone's guess, but at least there was light and where light shone someone might be waiting. He restrained an abrupt impulse to call out and walked cautiously up to the heavy oaken panels. The doors folded back, opening by some unknown volition and Jonathan entered into a warmly lit chamber.

Light flickered from a great wheel suspended overhead, ringed with yellow burning tapers. A chain fastened to an iron ring cloven into the wall kept it as motionless and as still as the rest of the house. The soft light might have given the room a surreal, warm, almost inviting atmosphere had it not been for the utter desolation. Harker hesitated upon the portal and glanced about. Off to his left were four twisting pillars and bisecting the very centre of these a grand staircase made a mountainous ascent to a wide, deserted gallery. Darkness kept the upper storey unto itself, dividing this candlelit world from a land unknown. The room was richly decorated, but the style was one of austere taste. One wall was totally enveloped in the motionless folds of a continuous velvet drape hung over tall windows, its claret folds shielding the interior from the obtrusive light of day. Flags and pennants drooped limply from iron spikes; exotic animal heads watched him with glittering obsidian eyes. The floor was inlaid with a pattern of large black and white parquet squares and an ivory, many-pointed star of veined marble marked the focal point of the room. Harker crossed to a long oaken refectory table that stood beneath the rustic chandelier and set down his cases. Just beyond the table a stack of pine logs crackled and blazed in an open fireplace. Set above the fireplace, moulded in plaster and vibrantly painted was a coat of arms emblazoned with red and gold stripes. Its gilded legend spelled:

**FIDELIS ET MORTEN**

"_Loyalty and Death_"

Above the crest a galleon was sinking in a tempest while two Dragons clasping golden tritons with razor sharp claws fought over the shield. Their fanged mouths were stretched wide, ready to spew flame, or to fan the winds that had sent the ship to its doom. Loyalty and death, but to whom was such fidelity meant? Jonathan mused for a short second over this oddly sombre motto and what its legend implied. Was to be loyal also to be dead? Loyal to whom? The answer to that was a vagary and after a moment Jonathan turned his attention to the dinner table.

The carved oaken bench was laid with flawlessly gleaming silverware and one solitary but beautifully elegant Venetian crystal wine glass. He extended a hand and watched his warped reflection reach forward and touch the silver. Lifting the tureen cover released the odd aroma of a dish he'd never eaten before, but there was something a little unpleasant about the smell, like that unnameable whiff his nostrils had caught on the drawbridge, an underlying waft of something nasty. Harker wrinkled his nose and replaced the lid. Exotic hothouse fruits and a bottle of red wine glowed waxen in the combined light of the fire and the candles. Only silence attended him.

He turned his gaze to an envelope that rested beneath a tall candle. Jonathan reached out and picked up the envelope and opened it. The paper was almost transparent and the amber shades of the fire danced through its thinness. He could see the blood-red tips of the fire in the grate glowing under the sheer paper. Marked on the letterhead was the same colourful Coat-of-Arms motto that crowned the fireplace. The note was etched in beautiful script:

"My Dear Harker.

I am sorry I was unable to meet you.

Eat well, make yourself comfortable.

DRACULA."

A strange flicker passed over Jonathan's face, it might have been a forced smile or it might have been a herald of fear, regardless it changed his features into an unreadable mask. He walked around the length of the table and his fingers let the translucent paper fall into the fireplace. It was instantly reduced to cinders. Harker threw a new log into the hearth, took up a brass poker and stirred the fire. As the flames danced hotly the sun at last dropped behind the Carpathians bringing with its passing absolute darkness to the world without.

Perhaps an hour elapsed; time seemed listless here as if the very atmospheres were atrophied. No clock presented itself anywhere but for the fob watch Harker carried in his vest pocket; he did not take it out to check the time. He ate sparsely, finding the food though beautifully presented somehow not to his palate, not to mention oddly aromatic, as if too many spices were concealing the taste of corruption. It made him think of vegetables that had struggled to grow in clay and of meat that had hung far too long in a smokehouse. Even the wonderful and exotic fruits on display, the pineapple, the oranges and the figs possessed a similar flavour. He could not imagine how they had grown here in Transylvania. Harker's appetite disappeared quickly and there was no way he could force himself to eat any more. Instead he rose from his seat and took from his smaller valise a black case, opened it out and removed a red-leather bound volume and a set of scribes. Setting the book before him he sat again and opened the slim box containing the writing nibs and the ink. Pressed into the book's leather front cover were two letters in gold- _J. H_.

Harker opened his diary and reached for a pen. For a moment he hesitated, drawing in his thoughts and then the brass nib touched the paper and he began recording the thoughts he had conjured on the ascent to the castle, but as he did so his elbow pushed against a platter and the silver discus dropped to the floor with a resounding crash, the noise rising like canon fire to the heights of the towering ceiling. Knots of bread and cutlery skidded to various points of the veined-marble star. Quickly he set down his pen and leapt from his chair, shaking his head at his own clumsiness and kneeling, he began to gather up the scattered bread and knives. A weird sense told Jonathan that he was no longer alone; a hyperborean breath of coldness had suddenly blown up behind his back, a numbing chill that reached out and laid a frozen hand upon his spine. He felt the hackles tingle on his neck and a little thrill pumped through his veins. It was perhaps the same sensation he had felt as he had crossed the wooden drawbridge and looked down at that formidable door, only this time it was more palpable and far more intense. There was a vague hint of feminine perfume in the air. Jumping to his feet he spun around.

The woman had appeared from nowhere, her light step gliding silently over the floor. She was voluptuous in form and yet at the same time ethereal, a peculiar combination of beauty and carnality. An artist's brush had painted on the vermilion tint of her lips; her skin was the shade of alabaster and her hair blacker than a raven's plume and braided, coiled and woven with stars. The garment she wore was milky white and practically transparent, Hellenic in style, as if she belonged to another era, to a time of the ancients and there was not one line of her lovely symmetry that did not fill Jonathan Harker's gaze with awe. His vision came to rest upon her eyes and they were the colour of opals, a milky green with a golden fire for pupils. Those eyes spoke of passion and delight and danger too. He had never seen eyes that colour before in all of his life.

"I'm sorry," Harker spoke softly, keeping his tone modulated, afraid that his voice would dry up in his throat. "I did not hear you come in. My name is Jonathan Harker. I am the new librarian." He tried to smile but the attempt died on his lips. This woman's beauty would have challenged Helen's.

Harker barely had time to return the silver tray to the table when the woman moved forward swiftly and threw herself upon him. Her chill hand closed around his arm and then leapt to his shoulder. This abrupt familiarity took Harker by surprise. Though she looked delicate her grip was like a vice. A volt went through the barrier of his clothing and tingled along his skin, awakening in his body a sudden, burning wave of desire. Involuntarily he stepped back but the woman clung to him. He did not know what to do, or how to react in his paralysis of guilty pleasure.

"You will help me, won't you," the strange woman insisted, imploring and beseeching in a low and piteous tone. "Say you will. Please."

Although Jonathan was taken aback by her plea he could not deny the thrill of her touch. He felt the pressure of her grip and the sinful caress of her lithe body against his own, but he did not peel her hands away. That she was oddly cold, as carved marble is cold, made the contact slightly repellent but the closeness of her flesh confused his thinking; she should have been warm, like Lucy was warm. The odour of heliotrope floated from the beauty's skin, a heady perfumed scent, thick as if it were masking something bad, underlying something, like everything in this castle reeked of something other. The smell filled the close air and made it thick and stifling, made it difficult for him to catch a breath. Her nearness and her eyes, her entreating eyes were tricking his mind and clouding up his senses. What about Lucy, what would she think if she had the misfortune to see him now? Surely she would be less understanding, but she was not here to see. Jonathan stiffened and his skin reacted, he felt his hands grip the woman's arm and catching himself he tried to pull away. Gently pushing the woman back he saw that there was a look of fear in her green eyes, but there was something else that shone there too, desire perhaps, and a vivid, carnal desire. The woman was no supplicant, and she raised her chin proudly despite the glint of fear in her countenance and dared a furtive glance over her shoulder. She looked about the great chamber as if she were afraid someone might espy her and mean her harm. Harker followed the direction of her eyes but saw nothing. There was only the two of them in this room and he wasn't even sure at this moment if this woman was real or a dream, or worse, a phantom. She did not turn her face back to his but continued to stare warily into nothing.

"How can I help you?" Harker asked at length, bringing her back to the moment. She snapped her head about as quickly as a snake strikes and her eyes looked up into his. How those eyes burned, myopic jade fires they were, scintillating with star fire and Jonathan beheld an all consuming darkness, vast and dangerous at their centres. Those eyes that had petitioned now seemed to taunt, and they promised something beyond anything he had ever touched, kissed or loved. If he looked too deeply he knew he might be lost, give up his free will and forever be damned as punishment for the desire he felt rushing through his veins. What this glorious beauty might offer, his pure Lucy perhaps could never give.

"Take me away from here," she insisted, her voice quavering, her words hanging upon the point of desperation like some tentative punctuation mark that could never be inserted into the end of the sentence. Thrusting forth her bosom she frantically grabbed at the lapels of his coat.

"But why?" Harker asked ineptly, for he could not think of anything else to say and his question sounded trite and almost ridiculous. Although a weird discomfort assailed him, he placed his own hand over hers and gently began to loosen her clutch. She resisted his fingers but how smooth her skin felt, so silky and so pale, like a Bernini sculpture. The gorgeous creature hesitated for a moment and for one split second she seemed to be unable to find the right words.

"He is keeping me prisoner," she said bitterly and then closed her eyes, her expression changing to one of distress and then to one of sadness, all this happening in the passing of a moment. She reminded him of a luminous bloom, one fashioned from an opaque wax or pale glass, and yet still somehow fleshy and wanting someone to touch it, linger over it with a long, long caress, to admire its exquisite form. It seemed incredible that such a lovely creature would be someone's captive, never able to leave the confines of this fortress. What of her family, where were they? Or friends, could she not ask help of friends rather than the likes of he, Jonathan Harker, librarian and perfect stranger? She was a burning enigma, a tragedy made flesh and her words made no sense. Jonathan did not want to commit to any foolish promise. He suspected whom it was that held her gaoled but her lips did not offer up the name.

"Who is?" Jonathan shook his head and waited for her to tell him. She remained silent, her tongue seized behind her teeth. "Count Dracula?" Jonathan's question went unanswered. "I'm afraid I don't understand." Harker shook his head in confusion. All this had happened far too quickly for him to comprehend anything. It brought back into his soul that dreadful rush of terror he had been trying so hard to suppress and confused his judgement, made him feel uneasy. She was certainly a mystery. There were many questions he wanted to ask of her. How had she come to be here, in this castle at the edge of nowhere? Who was she and what was her name? Why was she dressed so, her clothes reminiscent of another place and time? What had Count Dracula to do with her imposed confinement- was it punishment? Jonathan had to stop his thoughts from running on and as he retrieved that rational part of his mind perhaps she perceived what could only have been a half-suppressed tone of reticence in his voice as he replied. Still, he refused to believe that her situation was hopeless and yet she implored. Perhaps there was a way that Harker knew to help, a way pointing to freedom, but he had to understand what was going on first. The woman appeared desperate and he ignorant of whatever unhappiness chained her heart.

"Oh, please!" she began to beg. "Please, help me to escape."

A sharp chill snaked into Jonathan's heart, struck and lodged its tainted fangs somewhere close to blind fear and poisoned the heart with intimate desire.

"_To escape from what?"_

He did not finish his thought for as the last syllables fell from her lips a frosty wind blew through the motionless expanse of the red velvet drapes, the smouldering fire in the hearth flared up as one bright orange flame, the candles all but expired and a monstrous shadow blossomed from the darkness at the head of the great staircase. The woman let go of Harker's coat and dropped her gaze. Turning abruptly she fled the room. The young man was momentarily piqued by bewilderment. He watched the woman flee, her sandals barely touching the stone floor as she ran. The room had somehow changed its aspect and it had become duller and darker. It was a visual illusion conjured in the Underworld and it painted black all over the walls. The mood was almost palpable. The dark slid across the room and lifted a skeletal finger to Jonathan's lips. Poised upon his mouth it froze his tongue into a lake of ice. The nightmare clutched at him and squeezed his body so that the warmth of his blood leaked away into the soles of his shoes. On the edge of terror he looked up. His eyes travelled the ascent of the staircase and then with a visible shock he saw something forming in the dark. A pillar of black stood at the top of the staircase, a tall, immobile shape that was stained with pitch, deeper than the shadows that framed it. It was difficult to define the image from the surrounding dark, but there was a flash of red, the quickest glint of ruby fire from within its roiling depths.

Harker's eyes widened in surprise as the darkness suddenly moved and began to spill down the stairs, its shapeless width seeming to fold and retract and become something other, morphing into itself. It was a mirage that Jonathan only half glimpsed; a vision of great wings and two points of magma red that might have been eyes. The thing was a glimpse of the fantasy, a vision of something that flickered and blazed and roiled in a spinning, whirling vortex of shades. Jonathan took a faltering step back and terror swept through his body. The thing flowed down the stairs, flowed like spilled ink and the closer it came the more its appearance separated from the shadows and took on solidity. Soon it reached the final step of its descent, still all over black and still retaining its aura of rippling shadow. Abruptly, as if by magic the candles came to light again and the shadow crossed from its midnight pool into the warm illumination of the firelight. For the first time Harker looked upon his host and he gasped with strained relief.

"Mr. Harker, I am glad that you have arrived safely."

Harker could hardly manage to speak but he forced out the words- "Count Dracula?"

"I am Dracula, and I welcome you to my house."

The flare-up in the fireplace settled, the tapestries and hangings were once again stilled, but now the room was strangely alive as it had not been before. The very stone walls seemed to sing with a vibrant tone. There was presence in the chamber now, a vital and darkly alluring aura, an immediate change in the atmosphere, an energy that radiated from the Count. Harker felt it penetrate to his bones, hardly chasing away his fear but mixing it up with awe and wonder. The Dragons in the coat of arms blinked with eyes of garnet as they observed Harker captivated by his host.

Dracula was a man who towered above Harker, a man clad from toe to tip in the blackest of garb. He wore an ebon cloak, fastened at his throat by a golden chain and clasp, and the clasp was stamped with the same motif displayed over the fireplace. In his countenance Dracula was gaunt, but he was handsome, his face alive and irresistibly attractive. Dracula's features were those of a dark god that had been carved in antiquity, his eyes deep and piercing and knowing. Those eyes were roiling ebon spheres in which something dreadfully beautiful was captured, a terrible mystery that one might uncover too late, deep and as endless as space, born like planets accreted out of a void of chaos.

"I must apologise for not being here to greet you personally," Dracula continued, his voice melodious and reassuring, "but I trust that you have found everything you needed?"

Harker heard each word, listening from a place where time had begun to slow, to grind to a halt in a place where Dracula's atonal silver tongued excuses were mouthed like visual syncopations linked to the beating of the heart. It was either a spell that Harker felt softly caressing his soul or that he was simply becoming very tired. All was confusion and he did not understand. Dracula watched his guest with those blackly gleaming eyes, the younger man's gaze locked to the nobleman's and Dracula knew Harker shuddered within. Yet even as Jonathan felt the ripple pass through his body saw only the face of a black revelation, of a promise of darker things through which he might pass, and of pleasure.

Jonathan shook his head and with some effort he dragged his eyes from the Count's. Jonathan could feel his skin becoming damp under his clothes. In those lost seconds he might have discovered a perverse new world of existence but thankfully he had broken the trance and looked away, his sensibilities shaken.

"Thank you, sir," he managed to say, stiffly regaining his composure. "It was most thoughtful." He could not deny that he felt horribly uneasy and that Dracula was of a very persuasive and commanding presence. Jonathan's skin went damp and flared hot, a scarlet flush briefly staining his face. The world wavered ever so slightly and a tide of shadow washed over him. Jonathan felt his heart quake and the sensation shook him, shedding a rain of diseased scales from his eyes and exposing his inner core. Now he must keep his guard, keep his body, his mind, his being unstained. The Count lifted the corners of his mouth into a cordial smile. It was like he had perversely read Jonathan's mind.

"It was the least I could do after such a journey." Again the sound of Dracula's voice rang courteous and congenial. What had sounded like bells had now become amiable and friendly, without threat and trustworthy. It was almost impossible for Jonathan to think that Dracula might be anything other. The young man suddenly felt light-headed, almost giddy and a wave of exhaustion washed through his veins.

"Yes," replied Harker wearily, "it is a long journey."

"And tiring for you, no doubt." The Count hadn't dropped his smile all the while that he spoke, and he waved a hand in the direction of the upper floor. "Permit me to show you to your room."

"Thank you, sir."

They stepped apart and Harker was thankful for the divide. His host was possessed of a distinctive quality, a dark quality, one that could not be denied. Dracula continued to watch Harker's every movement with fixed attention, mapping the man's body as the tiger watches its prey before the strike. It seemed that every mote, every atom that composed the image of his guest was being burned into the retinas of Dracula's depthless eyes, and Harker knew it and it chilled him to the core. The young man hurriedly collected his writing tools and his diary and returned them to the little black case. He folded his coat over his arm, the very arm the strange woman had gripped but minutes before. He wanted to ask Dracula who the woman was but his tongue was stilled, instead he took up his hat then stooped to pick up his travelling cases.

Dracula extended a hand, a finely chiselled, beautifully manicured, niveous hand adorned with a great silver ring; sparks glanced off its multi-facetted onyx dome, and were the ghosts of Dragons sleeping in that dark stone too? "No, please, allow me," he insisted and Jonathan withdrew his own hand. For a brief second their fingers touched, the warm and the chill collided in a moment that should not have existed and a conduit of icy energy leapt between them. Harker pulled his hand away as if he had been burned. "Unfortunately, my housekeeper is away at the moment." Dracula smiled as he spoke his excuses, gripping the suitcase handles and standing erect, his eyes never leaving his guest's. Like a tower composed of black he loomed over Jonathan. "A family bereavement, you understand."

"Yes, of course," returned Harker stuttering, but he did not understand, not at all. Surely many would have tended a house of this gigantic size. Aside from the strange woman he was sure there could be no one else in the castle; he was alone and it made his isolation from the world he had left even more pronounced and weighed upon his heart. Dracula stepped forward and led the way.

Into the lofty castle heights they ascended, to briskly transverse a wide gallery littered with furniture collected from many centuries past. Chiselled woodwork gleamed as if it had been lacquered that very morning, tapestry and upholstered trimmings presented vivid colours to the eye. Paintings and animal skins and pennants decorated the thick stone walls. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. Dracula spoke briskly as they climbed higher. "However, I think you will find that everything has been prepared for your comfort."

It was difficult to keep pace with the Count, for every step Jonathan took the man in black seemed to take four. They strode up another staircase, this one not as wide as the first but still mountainous.

"How soon may I start work, sir?"

"As soon as you wish. There are a large number of volumes to be indexed."

At the end of these words they arrived at what was to be Harker's room, Dracula appeared to open the door, though it may have opened of its own volition, Harker could not be sure as the Count had not extended a hand to do so. Silently they entered. A silken carpet was spread over the cold stone floor, its colours and patterns of flowers and mythological beasts were, like the furniture elsewhere, vibrant and rich. As in the great dining hall below there was no clock to capture the passing of time. A claret coloured tapestry hung about the canopy of a mahogany tester bed, a scarlet and gold coverlet and a tasselled bolster made the bed look comfortable enough. Near the bed stood a screen with a frame of lacquered rosewood, its panels were woven tapestry displaying a needlework triptych. They depicted a hunting scene composed of Botticelli's _'Nastagio degli Onesti'_. The scenes were both horrible and disturbing; in the first a young woman was being brought down by a hound; in the second her fallen corpse was being disembowelled and the last was almost a duplicate of the first. Surreal and violent they were the stuff of bad. Harker could not bring himself to appreciate the art or the allegory; he wished it were not decorating what was to be his sleeping chamber. An ornate blanket box as big as a coffin ran the width of the foot of the bed; here Harker rested his coat and hat, Dracula placed Harker's luggage on the floor at his feet, the smaller case he set on the open shelf of a great solid walnut writing bureau, its bevelled glass windows reflecting the warm light of the fire; its many drawers carved with peculiar geometric designs.

"Is there anything else you require, Mr. Harker?" The timbre of Dracula's voice had changed again, now it threaded each word together so quickly that Harker found it difficult to take them all in. Surely this castle existed only in a dream, the world here seemed to stop and start, to slow and to gain speed, to twist and warp so without warning from one moment to the next that it made Harker dizzy.

"No, I don't think so. You've been very kind." All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

On a games table, red and white chessmen had massed their ranks but none seemed ever to have been moved. They were paused in the game, but despite this fact that no dust had accumulated anywhere it was evident that no one had entered, let alone occupied this chamber for a very long time.

"On the contrary, it is entirely my privilege." Dracula lifted the arch of his lips into what only a fool would have considered a genuine smile, but his voice had the effect of a drug and every syllable intoxicated Jonathan's senses. "I consider myself fortunate to have found such a distinguished scholar to act as my librarian."

Such flattery was for fools thought Harker and he wished to tell the Count so but words were coming forth from Harker's own mouth that seemed to have no relevance whatsoever to his thoughts. What was the relevance of ancient histories, tracts and fictions and putting numbers to them when the world of the sensual beckoned? Jonathan heard the trailing echoes of Dracula's voice sounded somewhere in his head and they were an invitation to. . . what?

"I like quiet and seclusion," Jonathan responded, his tongue stumbling over numb syllables, not wanting to finish that last corrupt thought. "This house," he added hastily, "I think, offers that."

Yet what else did it offer? It stood in a mantle of cloud, secretive on a precipice overlooking a dark world, wrought of an aspect of isolation and of obtenebration. Deception and blindness clung to its ancient stones. This was the end of the world for any who ventured here, and Harker knew this, had felt it the moment he had taken in its vista, the moment he had become aware that no birds sang. The guise of librarian was a ruse and he was none too sure if Dracula suspected otherwise. If he did then there was good reason to be afraid. Still he could not challenge his fears, not yet, he had to resist and remain strong. But Dracula's aura was so very powerful and seductive. It enveloped the flesh with its conceit, it hinted at all that was false and depraved.

"Then we are both satisfied," the Count spoke rapidly and his lips deepened at the corners, and there was a suggestion of impropriety in his words that made Jonathan shudder. The Count stepped away from his librarian and Jonathan could not help but think that his host might never be satisfied.

"An admirable arrangement," Dracula stated matter-of-factly and Harker lamely nodded his concurrence.

"But there is just one _more_ thing, Mr. Harker." An unmistakable and profound accent of significance attached itself to that one word- '_more'_, something not stated yet ominous, thinly veiled in Dracula's dialogue. What was Dracula implying? What more might happen this night and were Dracula's words meant to frighten? Harker suspected with a cold little thrill that there was an unspoken threat to his safety in the Count's words.

"I have to go out, and I will not be back until after sundown tomorrow, but, until then, please look upon this house as your own." The Count's swift speech was a mixture of geniality and danger by implication. "Goodnight, Mr. Harker." Dracula did not bow and for a stilted moment he did not move.

"Good night, sir." Harker managed feebly, but he was far from convinced of his host's sincerity and could never imagine a house such as this as his own, only the night thrived here.

Soon enough the Count whirled about, a black raven, stretching its wings, and left the room. Jonathan stared for a long moment into nothing as the door closed; not registering that it did so of its own accord. He was relieved to be alone, relieved that the Count was gone. Being close to the nobleman seemed to strangle all sense of self, to suffocate the will and to weaken one's faith. Harker knew it in his heart; the Count was as mystifying as he was cordial, as dark as the night and as seductive as the Devil. He had felt the man inside his head, prickling his thoughts with an irresistible glamour and it frightened him. He shook his head so that he might clear his thoughts and opened his smaller black kit bag and for the second time that evening he removed his diary and nibs. He placed these on the desktop and then, almost hesitantly he removed a golden frame and opened it, setting it atop the writing cabinet. His eyes were full of longing and he forced a tired smile.

A knock sounded upon the door and Count Dracula re-entered the room without invitation. He strode to where Harker stood before the desk and spoke quickly, as if he were needed elsewhere and could barely afford the time to waste.

"As I shall be away for so long, I think it better that you should have the key of the library, Mr. Harker."

Dracula proffered a long iron key. It looked more like the key to a dungeon than one that opened a library.

"Thank you." Harker accepted the key and tested the weight of it in his palm. It was as heavy as it looked and polished to a pewter sheen, and it was cold, a frozen sliver of iron that might have been retrieved from the bedrock of the icy torrent that ran beneath the drawbridge. He tried to smile but couldn't, reaching over instead and placing the key on the desktop.

"You will find the library to the left of the hall." It was then that the Count sounded slightly distracted as he spoke, and Jonathan realised why. His host's gaze had locked upon the gilded frame that had been set above the bureau.

"May I?" Dracula extended his hand so that Jonathan would be obliged to take the frame down and give it up. A terrible notion crossed Harker's mind that if he did so he would be giving up more than for what he had bargained. It was such a ridiculous, childish and unreasonably jealous thought and Harker tried to quell it as soon as it had blossomed within his skull, but he did not move to take down the frame. Dracula merely smiled and waited while time hung expectantly like a line of stops at the end of a sentence. When the tableau at last broke Jonathan felt a frisson pass between them, some awful doom-laden eventuality that had been set in motion and that nobody would be able to stop.

"Yes," Harker replied reluctantly, reaching up and taking the picture frame from the cabinet, "certainly." Some sick and warped corner of Jonathan's mind whispered to him a strange and rapturous song. It was as if his mind was not his own, his thoughts snared in a web of binding that bent him irrevocably to the Count's will. Dracula was so close and his body…

Harker found himself having difficulty focussing; the man in black seemed composed of things that had no name. A moment with beauteous evil brushed Jonathan's core and a foul promise stained his psyche with the colour of divine filth. Jonathan beheld Lucy staring out at him from the gilded frame, her eyes blue and innocent. He could hardly stand to look at her portrait, feeling a dreadful weight that he did not understand crushing his heart. Quickly he handed it to Dracula. Again lightning passed from fingertip to fingertip. Harker snatched away his hand.

Dracula's eyes appeared to flicker red, two fiery gems caught in the glow of the fire reflected from the diamond cut glass of the desk. It was as if he knew what Jonathan was feeling, there was the hint of a tainted smile twisting the corners of his scarlet mouth. The impression of sharp-tipped teeth vanished before it could register fully. An illusion? Jonathan could not be sure.

"Your wife?" he asked and Harker blushed and conceded the contrary, clenching his fingers into fists and then uncurling them, wiping his palms on his trousers. No, he was not married to Lucy, he had barely ever touched her lily white skin let alone be married, and he had never deigned to taint her honour by ever having imagined their bodies entwined together in a gross carnal act of desire. Yet upon this thought he could not stem the rush of heat now spreading through his veins; a return of that not so unwelcome craving that he had experienced with the dark-haired beauty earlier in the evening. The reality of this desire unnerved him. He should not be thinking such things, and he reprimanded his desires. Here, in this secluded place anything might be possible, his soul could be reduced to ashes by a touch, by a kiss. If he were to act upon chivalry and help the lively sylph to escape how might she repay his deed? He could see the lovely woman standing before him, her garment falling away from her breast and her hand reaching forward to clutch at his member, her lips gleaming. He could have her and nobody would ever know. Lucy would never know. Dracula was smiling and Jonathan shook his head to dispel those tainted and lustful imaginings, because instinct told him that Dracula would know.

"No, she is my fiancée." Harker forced the words out of his throat as if he were confessing to some horrible crime. He wanted to snatch the frame back from Dracula but some hideous force held his arms at bay. He mustn't say another thing; he knew this but some power was drawing everything out of his heart, ripping revelations out like pages being torn from a book. He berated himself. How could he be feeling such obscene desires when here was Lucy's picture with a face so pretty and so loving? He felt shamed but the shame was all mixed up with a sordid pleasure. It was as if a virulent disease had contaminated all sense of what was pure, a sickness that debased the flesh with an overpowering wanting for things forbidden. Yet at the same time was wholly exquisite.

Dracula's eyes devoured the portraits, for there were two pictures, two angles of a lovely, gentle face, a young woman in the bloom of health and vitality.

"You are a very fortunate man, Mr. Harker. May I ask her name?"

Jonathan did not want to divulge her name, for if by doing so he would somehow betray her and despise himself for the rest of eternity. There was something horrible speaking in his soul and it told Harker to seal his lips. He was on the brink of betraying himself.

"Lucy. . ." he said, giving up her name reticently and Dracula sensed the reserve in Jonathan's tone. "Lucy Holmwood." His lips once again gave the faint suggestion of a smile, but not one of happiness, but rather it hinted at something obscenely unspoken.

Too late, it was done and Jonathan could not take his words back, he had spoken Lucy's name. Somewhere deep in his soul he knew that he had condemned her, to what he didn't know, it was just a horrible, gnawing fear that his world was now irrevocably changed. Dracula's black eyes glittered again, and Jonathan could have sworn that the Count's lips pursed in an obscene and silent smile as he mouthed the woman's appellation. Jonathan reached forward to take back the frame, but Dracula held it fast. A strange look of confusion crossed Harker's features, and that confusion could not mask the underlying revulsion and horror that the tall, dark stranger stirred within him. At length, having protracted the moment almost to the point of obscenity, Dracula handed the portrait back to Harker.

"Charming. . . charming," he said, his words almost a whisper that Jonathan had to struggle to hear. From somewhere far off a wolf howled and Jonathan vainly attempted to suppress a shudder. It was no use denying fear, for Dracula knew all of the thoughts born in Harker's mind and there was nowhere to hide, and nowhere to hide Lucy either.

"You are very kind." The words were lies but Harker could think of nothing else to say, he felt like the serpent charmed by the Fakir. He had begun to feel sick in his stomach again.

An uncomfortable silence then fell between the two men, a silence that clamped their tongues shut fast. Neither spoke, they just stared at each other as if time had frozen. The moment seemed to go on forever though in reality it lasted for all but a few seconds. It was Dracula who broke the ice in their throats: "Good night. Sleep well, Mr. Harker." He said nothing further and turning on his heel, abruptly he left the room.

Once alone, a sigh of relief came from Harker's lips. His breath condensed in the air, for despite the warm fire blazing in the grate the room had become so much colder, the chill was only dissipating now. Then he heard the unmistakable click of the tongue in the lock turning and he hurried to the door only to find that it would not open. For some unknown reason Dracula had shut him fast in this room. It made no sense to Harker for had Dracula not already given him the freedom of the house? Perturbed he returned to the bureau and sat down and opened his diary.

_"At last I have met Count Dracula," _he began to write falteringly, pausing to dip his nibin the ink._ "He accepts me as a man who has agreed to work among his books... as I intended." _A skewed smile etched itself into Jonathan Harker's features, something grim belied by the imperceptive trembling of his nib hung poised above the paper and the brief closing of his eyes, suggestive that his thoughts were deeply troubled and he did not know how to write them down. This was the moment of truth, the moment when he had to write, to commit his real purpose to paper. "_It only remains for me now to await the daylight hours when, with God's help, I will forever end this man's reign of terror."_

Jonathan looked at the sentence he has scratched out. It seemed like a slip of the mind, hoping that God would aid him in his mission when Jonathan protested that he found it difficult to believe in the Almighty. Lucy, she was the one that he must think about now, and hers was the influence on the mind, for Lucy believed and perhaps, just maybe, that was enough faith for them both. For if one were reduced to speaking so figuratively, maybe it was after all God's help he would need, but hope between himself and the almighty would be difficult to reconcile as his faith was not strong. Yet had Jonathan risen from his desk and looked from his high window he might have had reason to question his atheist vulnerability, he might have seen a thing darker than the night erupt from the shadows and glide across the drawbridge. That thing was not composed of the workings of God. Had Jonathan watched on he would have glimpsed it pass between the towering pylons upon which perched the sculptured birds of prey, with wings outspread wider than their stone wings. This thing had no purity about its form, no divine link with divinity and it was a conjuration born of the minions of the damned. Had Jonathan Harker set down his pen he might have felt a ripple of evil in the air that he should not have ignored, he might have had a precognition of something that was not flesh and blood as man is flesh and blood, and he might have been riven by a volt of darkness slicing into the very core of his being. But in ignorance he remained seated and continued to write and to record and bore no witness to death on dark wings. The thing blended with the night and became a twisted and unrecognisable part of the darkness.

Reel Three

Jonathan slumped uncomfortably in the chair, a high-backed and rigid piece of furniture with scrolled arms painted in gold leaf; the verdure seat was overstuffed. Despite his discomfort Harker had dozed off, the warmth of the fire having lulled him down into the false security of sleep. He drifted into vague and blended dreams, troubled dreams that seemed so vivid and real. It was dusk and the sun was falling to its death over the line between the sea and the sky. He stood on a cliff-top that overlooked the ocean and could see the waves far below flying angrily against jagged slate teeth, throwing spume up as high as fifty feet. Every now and then he could feel little droplets of water speckling his lips and cheeks. From over the boiling waters a wind blew and sang a siren's song in his ear, played an effortless symphony of oft-changing pitches that filled him with a weird expectation. The gusting voice of the wind swirled about him, rising from lullaby to melody and then into the clamorous dissonance of thunder. There were no clouds in the sky and the upper atmospheres were deepening to mauve. The sun chose this moment to surrender and the moon took its place, rising slowly into the purple sky dome. With the darkness came another to join him, someone who would not show their face. Despite this Jonathan knew it was his beloved and no other, she was so close that his senses told him it was Lucy, he could feel her radiance, smell the perfume of her skin. If he reached out he could almost touch her, almost run his fingers through the cascade of her red hair. Her figure floated in the shadows, composed of moonlight and ribbons of mist, gowned in a veil of white and against the argent disk of la Lune he could make out the shape of her body beneath. How he wanted to hold her. Yet in the dream he understood that this would not be possible, that something was not right, knew that she had somehow changed, that she was not in soul like the Lucy he cherished and hoped to make his wife.

Yet what had changed, what had smeared that which he had thought stainless? In the dream he reprimanded himself, was it his own dark fantasies and could they be liberated only in the fugue state between this world and the next? What _was_ his ideal of Lucy? That she should be dutiful and respectful, obedient and therefore ultimately lifeless? Life would be turned upside down. Jonathan stirred in his slumber and twitched slightly, groaned. That was not what he wanted for their love. No, not that Lucy should wilt away and become as a spectral thing, something robbed of its agency, robbed of its life and passion. Stretching out his arms he grasped for the phantom in his dream, tried to hold her, but Lucy only laughed, a strange ghostly echo of a laugh and turning from the cliff edge she leapt away from him. As the shadows ran before her Jonathan ran after, but she refused to be caught. Yet he had to catch her up, embrace her, tell her that all he really wanted was her love and that his love for her would never change. The guilty spur of lust that had hooked into his heart and needed dislodging was but a fleeting moment of male weakness. The strange woman in Dracula's castle, beautiful as she was, meant nothing to him. Higher up the hill they chased the shadows under the moon, and before them loomed a great ruin, an old abbey at the periphery of the world. Languorously, stone by stone the decaying edifice was falling, following the descent of the sun, its splintered blocks rolling in slow motion like huge marbles over the cliff and into the sea. He could hear them booming as they smashed apart on the rocks below and were scattered into the foaming waters.

A waxen light was shining in one of the last windows that remained partially intact, a window in the ruined chapel that held the crimson and indigo remnants of broken stained glass within its granite frame. The moon rose higher and her luminance shivered there with tongues of coloured fire. Looking up Lucy laughed once more and still would not show her face. Jonathan made a lunge for her but she easily evaded him, stepping in and out of the shadows. Following as best he could his feet were soon on a rutted path and the path ran up along the near side of the ruin. Between two rusted spear-tipped gates the ghostly wraith that was Lucy passed, disappearing within the crumbling edifice. The night and the shadows fell upon a floor of cracked stones.

They stood in the remnants of a room with night for walls and the starlit canopy for its roof. Beneath their feet was a vast chequer board cut from massive granite flagstones. Lucy kept ahead of him but stayed just close enough to lead him a maddening dance. She moved and then he moved, neither came nearer to touching the other, both were always one square out of reach. He wanted to hold her, for as if by doing that he could reassure himself of his love and pull them both back from the bleak and terrible shadows of the night. If only they could stand together on a white square. Only then perhaps the dirt that had spattered his soul might be cleansed away. He had tasted a putrid slice of temptation in his heart, a sample that he told himself he had no wish to taste again. Jonathan shivered because he knew that lust's unrest would forever ferment in his veins and the vague and shadowy Lucy seemed to perceive his mind and she giggled. The sound of her laughter was like chimes rung in glass and it was discordant. It didn't sound at all like the woman he loved and its echo died quickly amid the shadows.

Beckoning with a slender hand she led the chase from square to square, flitting behind columns and hiding in alcoves. From the blackness she extended her ivory white arms, tentacles they were, undulating and writhing as if with a lyrical serpentine life and bid him come closer. He knew no matter how hard he tried he would not catch her.

The earth shuddered as a titan rock crashed into the sea, the stained window trembled and the sky vault opened as if it were a great tome, spilling forth torn pages awash with scarlet stain. Then came the people, legions of them come to life from the pages raining from the night. These phantoms moved from the light into the shadows, woodcuts rent from invisible pages yet they lived and breathed, no longer prisoners in the ethereal paper upon which they had been printed.

The dead pressed close, leaving the shimmering impress of ghostly feet on the cold chequered flooring. There a clod of earth, there a vermillion smear and they whispered to Jonathan that he should not stay lest he be damned, told him how their bodies had been beaten and broken to build this place and how their blood had flowed- all into the mouth of the Dragon.

They insisted that the Dragon no longer slept in the earth but had awoken and taken on human form. When it walked as man it was thirsty, thirsty for blood. Jonathan could make no sense of this babble but in his core he knew the words were warning. Their voices were a thousand that became melded into one, a muffled raucity that cried- _"Run, run! Flee quickly while you can!" _They waved with their hands for him to go- go now. The dreaming Harker placed a shaky step on a white tile, his boot squelching into a puddle of blood. He felt horribly giddy and the voices were pleading with him but it did no good, something stronger than their entreaties bound him to this place and would not let him go. He wanted Lucy and she alone, wanted to take her and be gone from this place, escape from the dream. But Lucy would not be saved, no matter how noble his intent might be. The dead clamoured all about him in a whirling dance, he felt their chill hands upon his body and the cold exhalation of phantom breath. Going limp Jonathan fell, skidding in a pool of gore. There he floated and the blood rose around him like water in a bath. Immersed he was as one paralysed, watching but unable to move as the spectral things slithered into the blood, one after another beside him, dissolving, disgorging putrescence till it welled up and began to fill his open mouth. One gagging spasm of vomiting was all it took and the revenants dissipated. He saw them through a red-tinged view as they returned to their leaves of yellow parchment, dripping blood as they disappeared, flying back up into the air. Blood spilled from his open mouth, and then he heard Dracula's voice:

"…_To act as my librarian…"_ The echo sounded over, words that were laced with pulchritude and horror. Would Harker be called upon to index mouldering tomes or to record unspeakable carnalities? Abruptly there were books scattered everywhere. Harker wiped the fetid smear of gore from his lips with the back of his hand and stood up. From somewhere far away a vulpine creature sang to the moon, the sound carried upon a restless, searching wind. He skidded on the floor, attempting to gather in armfuls of the books. Each history there written became stacks growing higher, and higher.

"…_There are a large number of volumes to be indexed…index…ind…"_

Words as black caresses closed in ochre pages and leather bindings, all splashed with blood. Was that the price that one must pay here, in this place, for the soul, to haunt a dreamscape printed between gilt-worked leather, records of deceit and murder, to become something damned, imprisoned in a dead history? He caught one last glimpse of Lucy as she stepped nimbly around the volumes and quickly from a black square into one of light and then his dreams were pierced by what could only have been a scream, and the scream escaped from his beloved's lips. The shriek cracked like a rifle shot into the aural spaces of the real world.

Jonathan awoke with a start as if a titan hand had punched him in the heart.

It was difficult to know if he had really heard anything at all, everything hereabouts, in this chateau, was so frightfully silent, it was abnormal. Perhaps it was the cry of a hare being taken by an owl; Jonathan knew that out there the forest of the night was quite a different realm than in here, in this strange keep. Out there surely there should be many sounds, sounds that he'd never hear again in all of his life, strident cries and tuneless cacophonies vacillating in the restless airs; yet how could he be sure when he remembered with a chill that upon arriving no birds were singing? Yet had he really heard anything at all, had he not after all been dreaming?

Harker, now woken from his sinful slumbers rubbed his eyes and stretched his body. His muscles complained for the time they had spent cramped upright in the chair; he massaged the back of his neck. He had not intended to fall asleep and he couldn't remember doing so. He took his watch from his pocket and saw that the hour had passed midnight. It was then that he heard the faint click of the lock turning in the door. Instantly he jumped up but by the time Jonathan reached the door and put out a tentative hand, hesitating, wondering why the door should be unlocked now, only silence existed in the corridor without. His fingers closed about the curved handle and he pressed downward, pulling the door open abruptly. To his relief nothing greeted him. Cautiously he stepped over the threshold and quickly glanced up and down along the length and breadth of the gallery. It was difficult to see anything in the faint half-light for most of the candles along the way had burned down in tallow streamers to the ends of their wicks. He stole along the landing where grim faces on canvas followed his every step with stern, roving eyes; his blind shadow clutched tightly to his body as if it were afraid to venture one step further. In the dark at the top of the stairs the young man paused and put his hand into his pocket. He could feel the hard crossbeams of the little silver and jet crucifix Lucy had given him _"...for your mother's sake…"_, though Lucy was truly oblivious to the reasons for his venture into the wilds of Transylvania. He could not have told her, she would not have believed him- and if she had given the truth credence it would have filled her nights with fear and terror. It was odd that the cross felt strange between his fingers, giving out an electrical charge that cut through to his heart and his heart began to beat just that little bit faster. Jonathan clasped the tiny trinket, wrought from polished silver pinned with tiny nails to delicately worked jet. It felt hard and yet somehow soft, iron and crushed velvet; he let the filigree spill between his fingers. Jonathan shuddered and he sensed an odd tingle in his grip, as if a tiny, hair-thin fissure had passed up the crucifix lengthways, bisecting the figure of Jesus, splitting the Lord in two. Perhaps such an object did not belong in a place like this. He let go of the cross as if it had burned him and dropped it back into his pocket, retracted his hand. Fear and loathing and desire were confusing his rationale and stripping his brain of their defences.

Looking down from the gallery his vision fell upon a long sliver of light lessening in width as a door below was slowly closed. For a moment Jonathan strained his eye to the darkness and a growing fear held him rooted to the spot. Was that a muted rustling sound that his ear had faintly captured, a dull whisper in darkness somewhere between a sigh and a summons? He took a deep breath and forced his legs forward, moving toward the sound, stealthily descending from the heights of forever. At the bottom of the black well Harker scanned the shadows. Nothing stirred in the shades and no flicker of light gleamed. Silence reigned. Quietly he crept up to the door and gently tested the handle, it gave without resistance and Jonathan stepped into a great room. This then was the Library, a wide expanse of eclectic decors lit by a burning fire in the grate. Near the inglenook was a low narrow stool where one could sit before the fire, warming oneself as one read; and the far wall, from floor to ceiling was shelved and crammed with volume upon volume in vellum and gilt. At first glance the wall appeared continuous, unbroken by row upon row of ancient tomes and rolled scrolls, but it was bisected in the middle by the gaping mouth of an ornate and carved nave in which hung the portal of a heavy oaken door. Even from his side of the vast chamber Harker saw that the radiance from the fire sparked yellow in that other door's great brass hinges and it licked stuttering light and shadows over the legends indented into the spines of the books.

Underfoot the flagstones were black and white patterned marble, uncannily like the ones in his dream and similar to the flooring in the parlour but perhaps slightly larger. The centre design here was not a star but of astrological symbols that Harker recognised as the signs of the Zodiac. The Sun, the Moon and the Planets, the four triplicities of the elements and the division of the diurnal from the nocturnal were all intricately marked in painted gold and black in the centre of the room, flawlessly rendered in a great circle. Light and shadow opposed the workings of time, presaging the forces of good against evil. Off to one side was a gilded throne with scrolled arms ending in the sculpted forms of Dragon's heads. A large and rotating globe on a maple pedestal stood closer to the door, the countries of an antiquated world were etched on its surface in faded brown, aqua and cobalt. A very long refectory table pointed toward a window where red velvet drapes were drawn over the night. Books were piled up on the table too, some were bound together in stacks with twine; others lay singly scattered over the tabletop. Some were open. Candlesticks burned at either end of the table and the air was thick with that peculiar, seraphic odour of Heliotrope and decomposition that Harker had smelled upon arrival. The young man could see no one in the room and the only sound was the faint crackle of the leaping flames flickering in the fireplace. A shield of Dragons was etched there too.

For a moment he stood still with his back to the door through which he had entered, bemused by the thought that the key to the library lay upstairs on the desk in his room. Why had Dracula given it to him if the room was unlocked? Or was it the key to that great oak door, and upon what did that door open? Even as he thought this the through which he had passed closed with a faint click and Jonathan spun around.

The lovely creature that had intruded upon his repast and had vanished when the Count had appeared now stood in front of the door. She blocked the way with her lovely body, preventing Harker should he wish to exit. For Jonathan there could be no retreat. The two faced each other, still as statues and mute in deadlock. A moment elapsed and time was frozen stiff, all Harker could do was look at her. Abruptly she ran to him, throwing a frightened glance over her shoulder as she did so.

"Mr. Harker, you will help me?"

She smelt of that overpowering and cloying perfume and although Jonathan appeared composed she shook his nerve. Her sinuous and curvaceous figure filled his eyes, the pink of her skin showing through her robe, the black cascade of her hair a flying tempest of storm cloud. Jonathan could once again hear the resonance of his heart beginning to pound in his ears and he knew he was succumbing, that his desire for her was undeniable. He must resist, he told himself, but her allure was so compelling.

"If it is at all possible," he told her, keeping his voice low for her sake, and for his own, should Dracula be nearby and hear them. He meant to help her if he could though he had no idea of the consequences to such an action. "But, tell me, why is Count Dracula keeping you prisoner?"

The woman looked at him anxiously: "I. . . I cannot tell you that." She dropped her gaze to the floor and nervously half-turned away.

"But if I'm to help you," he insisted, "I must know." Jonathan doubted that the strange woman would divulge her secret no matter how hard he pressed.

"I'm sorry," she threw another furtive glance over her smooth white shoulder in the direction of the great oak door. Her cloudy green eyes were filled with fear and it was as if she expected it to spring open at any given moment. "It's not possible."

Jonathan had begun to feel uneasy, there was something in her dialogue and her demeanour that hinted at twilight and unspoken fears; he was at a loss to understand but he could not deny her an audience, nor could he stem the rising tide of his lust. If he was to help her he would need more information, but even if he managed to whisk her off to safety what was to happen then? The longer he lingered the more deeply he became ensnared.

"You make it very difficult for me," he said frankly, his words edged with a hint of frustration. Despite this fact he found it almost impossible to be blunt. An overpowering sensation was making his body and mind dissolve. It was all too unreal. The woman's closeness was affecting him, Jonathan knew it, for her body was exquisite and soft and glorious. He tried to fight his desire for her, telling himself that it was wrong to feel this way as he was engaged to Lucy. Yet even looking away from her face proved impossible to do, and there was no longer any control over his thoughts of her beauty, her flesh and her body. If he didn't get a grip on his fortitude now he'd be lost, intuition warned him of this certainty and still he felt himself falling. Yet how could he relinquish when she was gorgeous, and those lips, they were glistening and very red, the ripe colour of pomegranate seeds, like fruit waiting to be tasted? Part of him wanted to hold her and to kiss her, and part of him struggled violently within to repel. This uprush of contrary emotion confused his head and knew that he mustn't give in, for Lucy's sake, despite the temptation. No, he must not think such things. This place had a dreadful effect on one's mind, it brought to the fore all that was base and voluptuary, it threw dust in your eyes and scalded your skin with the white hot brand of lost self-control. Dark powers were at work here, dangerous libidinous and forbidden powers that were unbridled, released in tumbling waves whenever this woman or the Count were close. Within the walls of this castle roiled an all-consuming, sensuous evil. It was almost disgusting and so difficult to resist. Yet didn't even thinking such thoughts amount to some sort of horrible betrayal of Lucy? Jonathan couldn't do that, betray the woman he loved, and valiantly he struggled to regain his senses. Looking into the woman's eyes he said as calmly as he could: "After all, I'm a guest here. If I'm to help you, I must have a reason."

"A reason!" The woman ejaculated and there was hatred in her voice, a loathing as hard as steel. He knew the hatred was not intended for him. "You ask for a reason! Is it not reason enough that he keeps me locked up in this house, holds me against my will?"

Yet how was Jonathan to know this? The librarian felt helplessly inept.

The voluptuary moved away from Harker and stood by the etiolated sphere of the world. Angrily she spun the earth. "You can have no idea of what an evil man he is or what terrible things he does." Jonathan could only speculate on the mysterious and heinous deeds to which she hinted.

The globe was slowing and now her anger was turning to remorse, she looked as if she were upon the brink of tears. It made her seem somehow vulnerable. Perhaps there would be no harm in comforting her. Harker wished to help her despite his apprehensions though he had no idea who she was or what it was he could do. He wanted to tell her that everything would be all right but such small comforts would only prove ineffectual, he knew as much. Even as he thought this he felt a fresh wave of longing sweep through his body. Some isolated spot of purity in his soul battled this in his core. He stopped himself from reaching forward and clenched his hands into fists, his body quaking. She watched and half-smiled and moved away from him, circling the world, placed her hand upon the map of some distant and unknown land. That was the land of the ruined heart. Perhaps her thoughts really were to flee, to go to a far away country where she might never be discovered, if only she could convince the new librarian to help her. Her slender hand had abruptly stopped the globe spinning as if to emphasise that she already knew Jonathan's assistance would account to nothing against her gaoler, Count Dracula.

"I could not, dare not try to leave on my own," she said piteously and Harker could only read what he understood as torture in her eyes. "He would find me again, I know." A flicker of terror blanched the beauty of her face. Through the flimsy material of her gown Jonathan's eyes could see the roundness of her breasts, how her bosom rose and fell with every breath, and he saw too as he glanced lower the triangle of her pubis, a shadowy crown of black spun silk. She glanced up into his face and saw his staring eyes, bending slightly forward as she did so, her movement languid, calculated. He could see quite clearly then the carmine shade of her nipples and he did not look away. Instead his throat ran dry. All he needed to do now was to put his parched lips to those breasts and kiss them, taste them.

"But, with you to help me," she insisted, "I would have a chance. Oh, you must help me!"

The beautiful woman moved swiftly then, ran to Harker and grasping at his coat lapels looked desperately into his eyes. "You must!" she implored, shaking and trembling, her voice verging on the cutting edge of hysteria. Harker felt her chill closeness. It was not normal, no one was that cold. He forced his body to become as stiff as a statue but was still unable to push her away. She shook the young man as if to bring his resolute immobility to life. "You're my only hope. You must!"

He didn't even realise he was saying it, but before he could catch himself the pledge had slipped from his tongue. "I'll help you, I promise." As the vow passed from Jonathan's lips she laid her head upon his shoulder, and she licked her red lips. Pressing her body close to his she moved against him, an exquisite and slow gyration that made his blood quicken and his sex go even harder. He had never been this close to female flesh before, not so close that her body made his every muscle and sinew turn to water, made him lose control of himself. It threw his whole being out of kilter, this woman touching him as he'd never been touched before, ardent and compelling. Once again came the awakening of shame and guilt. Yet the stimulation was exciting, and her perfume filled his senses, made his head reel. Jonathan told his arms to thrust her off but they would not obey, her fervent insistence kept him rigid, kept him trapped, kept his sex hard. Her thigh pressed hard against his, and in its silken pressure was an invitation to an agony of iniquitous longing; it remade her cold flesh, her marble skinned being into a thing of accursed loveliness against which there was no defence.

"Please don't distress yourself," he managed to utter hoarsely, his voice strangled to a whisper by the rising inferno within his soul.

"Thank you," she whispered lowly, knowingly, "thank you."

There was for a moment no sound inside the room; a pall hung over its entire breadth and width. The fire in the grate ceased to crackle and spit, its Vulcan tongues stilled, no breath of air stirred amid the pennants and the drapes. All was as quiet as the grave. The woman rested her raven head upon Jonathan's shoulder and began to peel away the shoulder strap of her gown, slowly exposing her breast. She stroked it lightly and the nipple contracted, then she took his hand and began to guide it over her cool, ivory skin. Lost he could not push her away; it was like she had some indescribable power over his mind, and her flesh filled his consciousness despite its unnatural chill making a parody of his moral sensibilities. He didn't care anymore, what he wanted now was to taste her lips, even if they were forbidden. He wanted his own lips, his tongue to sample the divine and the passionate. Lucy need never know- it would be his one dark secret, something he could lock up in the black vault of memory. As if the woman had read his thoughts she responded with an eager, tumultuous lascivious shudder.

How she writhed sinuously against him and he closed his eyes, his heart quickening as a drum beats, his sex closer to the moment of ecstasy. He prayed that he should not release himself yet, no, not now, not while lust held him in its flame. Jonathan did not see her eyes as they changed, but they had narrowed and their colour had deepened, two brilliants that flared from opaque green to a harsh emerald. The pupils had become cat-like slits and then the whole of those terrible flaming eyes rolled back into their sockets, turning white. A crippling paralysis had gripped Jonathan's body, his manhood insistent against her thigh, her movements against him calculated, but he could do nothing about it. Her eyes rolled back and blinked and the green fire about the pupils flamed with incendiary sparks, and her vision was intent upon the vein throbbing in Harker's throat. She could see it pulsing vividly and smell the red tide of blood surging just under the skin. She clung to Jonathan and her grip was one of steel and she opened her scarlet mouth to reveal two long and pointed teeth at the corners of her lips.

Violently she sank those teeth into that throbbing vein.

The bite went deep and felt like fire, fixing him as a hook snares a fish. It was a moment of rapture and of all consuming pain. In horror Jonathan felt his sex stiffen throbbingly hard as he tried to pull away. The physical pleasure and the terrible pain were twin sensations, giving the woman that one moment longer so that her fangs might hold his throat in a torment of crimson suffering. Together they struggled, two-as-one dancing a ghastly tango across the space of five steps, her mouth sucking at the blood pumping from his wound, her clutch as tenacious as steel. If he might find his voice Harker would have screamed, but his throat was seized and his benumbed mind aflame. He tried desperately, roughly to grip her jaw and wrench it agape, but the creature clung vehemently and would not let go. A warm rush of blood began to spill from Harker's torn throat and what did not pass between the woman's lips flowed down his neck and blotched his clothing. Clutching frantically at her, uselessly curling his fingers into her ebon locks he was struggling to be free. Dizziness was beginning to take him; he could feel the burning heat of a vitriolic poison surging through his veins and for Jonathan the world began to reel.

At that moment when Harker was upon the point of collapse, the door bisecting the wall of tomes erupted open with a splintering crash. A numbing blast of icy wind exploded into the chamber and Dracula filled the doorframe, black as a storm, his frame gigantic, his face a grotesque mask of wild fury and savage passion. His eyes were burning coals and his mouth was pulled back in a hideous snarl, giving vent to a wrathful bellow that signalled the release of the venomous teeth embedded in Harker's neck. The woman withdrew her fangs and blood spurted from Harker's rent throat, staining her gown and sprinkling the floor. She snarled, spinning to face the Count and spitting in a fit of thwarted rage. Dracula's face was splashed all over with blood, it ran from his lips and had smeared the Dragon clasp; it coloured his hands a livid scarlet. The demon roared his fury at the sacrilege the woman had committed, that she had dared to take that which belonged to him, and like a great cat he leapt from the alcove and over the width of the table. In the passing of the blink of an eye the Count gripped the woman by her hair and tore her from Harker, her woven midnight locks tumbling free as she fell. She twisted about as Dracula threw her to the floor, contorting in an obscene commingling of woman and serpent and narrowing her eyes she glared and shrieked. Harker felt the world dropping away from his vision and through darkling eyes he saw the woman scrabbling to her feet, her naked bosom heaving and convulsing, dotted with spots of Harker's blood, her hair a raging black cloud. It was all too much for Jonathan to bear, his head was spinning and a painful scorching fever, beginning at the scars in his throat had begun to map the insides of his body.

A howl of rage spewed from the vampire woman's tongue; rage that she had been cheated of her feast of blood, her kill. She glared at the Count and he at her and his fingers became hooked claws, his visage a feral apparition of frenzy as he crossed the room toward her. Crouching like an animal she cursed him and ran the thick worm of her tongue over the clotting scarlet stain that was Harker's blood. Her eyes blazed with their own unholy light and she sprang up and once again flung herself at her victim. In the space of a heartbeat the Count had gripped her arm and wrenched her back; she struggled and snapped like a viper, scratching and hissing and throwing her head about in a paroxysm of inflamed madness. Dracula slapped her with the palm of his free hand; the resounding crack should have broken a man's neck. Harker put his hand to his bleeding throat and the warm liquid squirted into his palm, ran between his fingers, and the pain was excruciating. He didn't know what to do, his legs were turning to water and he could hardly stand up but he had to intervene. The woman was screaming and writhing and the Count hit her again and again yet still she raved and tried to throw him off, stretching out a grasping, clutching hand toward Harker, her naked breast dripping with gore. With all the effort he could muster Jonathan staggered forward and put up a hand as if to signal the horror to stop

Dracula discarded the woman as if she was a rag doll and as swift as lightning his grasp closed about the younger man's bleeding throat. Wild passion blazed in Dracula's eyes making those two infernal eyes appear twice their size, and they were as red and as hot as burning, binary stars. He smelled the sweet aroma of Jonathan's fresh blood and Jonathan smelled the fetid stench of the grave.

The pressure of Dracula's grip was firm and instant, a vice that squeezed Jonathan's throat and closed off the air to his lungs. For Harker the great room in which they struggled become a place darker than the blackest reaches of space. The demon licked its already bloody teeth as it beheld the blood oozing through its corpse fingers and a look of sick appetence twisted the vampire's lips into the parody of a freakish animal smile. Dracula brought his mouth closer and closer to Jonathan's neck. Those ghastly razor-tipped awls grazed the librarian's skin, and Harker heard a voice in the back of his mind telling him that this was the bestial penalty he must pay for his interference, for his giving in to lust; the horror was splashed all over Dracula's terrible features. Dracula began to suck, to drink his librarian's blood. The air was almost completely gone from Harker's lungs and as his mind reeled in those final moments before stupor he felt another sensation as the Count sated himself at the crimson font of warm life. As the humiliating stab of ecstasy flamed and contracted within his body Harker climaxed in an abrupt ejaculation. Dracula seemed to sense a sick triumph and weakly, near the edge of blackness, Harker attempted to grope within his pocket for the tiny crucifix Lucy had given him, but his fingers had turned limp as if they possessed no bones and the world was rapidly darkening, darkening. Abruptly Dracula drew back his mouth and let go. Harker dropped to the floor and struck his head on a corner of the long stool near the fireplace. Spinning in the final vestiges of his senses Harker heard the woman shriek, a dreadful animal cry of torture and he caught one last glimpse of the creature that was Dracula lift her flaccid body in his arms and disappear through the nave, the door crashing shut behind him.

Mercy took Harker then and gave him over to oblivion.

The sun made a feeble attempt to flood watery light over the many-turreted walls of Castle Dracula. The golden light of day was not welcome, only things of the pit could enter herein, and the eight-foot thick walls greedily sucked in the amber rays and murdered them amid shadows. The near mountains crouched about the keep as if to conceal it from human sight; the water falling from the open vein of the mountain stream rushed on, pouring over the jagged precipice making the frigid atmospheres misty, concealing the high towers in cloud. Stillness gagged the valley. Aphony clung to the rocks and the conifers that painted the slopes and clogged up the throat of the deep and distant gaping carapace in the earth below. Time slipped by because here it was uncounted and by the late afternoon the waning glimmers of the failing sun threw the last of their beams through the coloured glass of a room set high in the pinnacle of a tower. The room was occluded; two candles were dying as their wicks simultaneously burned out expelling twin strips of curling blue smoke in the air, the fireplace was dead with spent coals. On a great crumpled bed lay Jonathan Harker, his head at the foot end, pressed against a coffin-like blanket box and propped up on a bolster. Slowly, and with a groan he became conscious. For a while he could not think of what could have happened to him. Groggily rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes Harker had to pause, realising that there was blood on his hands, dried blood. His heart skipped a beat and then confusion took over and rattled his brain. How did he get blood on himself and why was his throat so dry? It hurt just to breathe and to swallow was even worse. He fished into his vest pocket and popped out his fob watch. The watch had ceased to tell the time, its tiny hands frozen stiff, the minute hand seemed somehow warped. Putting the dead timepiece back into his pocket he stumbled weakly to the window and looked out through the coloured diamond-shaped panes. Abruptly he realised with an awful thrill of terror that soon the sun would vanish and he would be defenceless. Harker's head spun and he felt dizzy, and he thought that he must sit a while and regain some strength. Yet to do so would draw him closer to darkness and all that he had come to do would not be accomplished, all would be lost. He would be forsaken, never to return to his beloved Lucy. He needed Van Helsing to be here with him now, needed the older man's strength and wisdom and needed his guidance because he knew he might fail in this task. Jonathan felt for the cross in his coat pocket, Lucy's gift of protection that he had so flippantly dismissed. Pulling it out he looked at the crucifix closely. To his horror he saw a hair-thin fissure running through it from top to bottom. Even as he watched the body of Christ bisected, the chain broke and two pieces of black and silver fell to the floor. The awful finality had come upon him at last, struck him down in a moment of weakness. He had let his guard down and was lost even now the God in whom he had refused to believe. There was no power on earth that could change that now, not even if he accepted the Creator into his life. He had become the victim of something feral, something as old as time, and parasitic. Jonathan did not understand the vampire as Van Helsing understood the creature, and Jonathan lamented that he did not possess the older man's fortitude and learning. All Jonathan knew right now, at this very moment, was that soon it would be dark and the night would bloom with fresh horrors.

Somewhere within this castle's walls the demon slept hidden from the light of day. If only he could find that place all might be put to right. That vile smelling abyss under the drawbridge, that had to be where he must look first. Jonathan was certain that one or the other of these monsters rested there during the day. He needed his courage to stay true, needed the strength of his heart and Lucy's unconditional love to carry him to victory. From the window he looked down through the stone plumage of the eagles, down to the drawbridge he had crossed the afternoon before, down to that grated door and the reeking fistula beyond. A feeble shaft of sunlight pointed the way like a straight and piercing arrow, right to that very spot, and Harker knew then for certain that his suspicions were confirmed.

A brutal resolve had hammered home his purpose for coming to Castle Dracula, Van Helsing had told him that he must be prepared to know the face of evil should he resolve to set foot in Castle Dracula.

"Only the Devil will be your ally there," Van Helsing had said, "and you will not acknowledge even his foul host."

"Neither do you," Jonathan had replied. "But are we men of science or necromancers?"

"We must keep our minds open," Van Helsing had responded.

"But we are not primitives!"

"Regardless," ventured the Doctor, "all religious activity is predicated upon the behaviour of a group. We too, you and me, we are a collective and we must remain strong together. Our search in this particular science has led us to Dracula, and though his nature seems defined as 'evil' I am more inclined to view it as abstract, even if we must employ religious ritual in our defence!"

"This monster we run against," Jonathan continued, "has the disease of vampirism in his charge. Because of this infection he is able to bring vile trickery and death upon mankind. If he is truly a vampire then I believe he was only made so through some past and awful contagion and that he is the agency by which the virulence is spread."

"Do not forget," warned Van Helsing, "that this creature has the power to inflict harm on anyone he chooses. He drinks blood to stay 'alive' and his curse is hostile and destructive. Jonathan, we are both agreed that Dracula may be bound by certain mortal limitations, bound by physical manifestation like running water and garlic, things which we have read about might exert a strange power over him. But such things it is said cannot destroy him. Unfortunately we know so very little about this being because the creature has never been studied. That is why you must set aside all of you assumptions about life and faith, because soon you will meet with that creature and your mind must be alert and ready for battle."

"You know that I trust in your learned judgement, Dr. Van Helsing," Jonathan had replied. "And I wish only good things for Lucy."

It was this thought, the vision of Lucy's pretty face that spurred Jonathan's determination, and that drove him forward. No, he could not fail the people he loved, dared not let Dracula have licence over the world and its pure young blood, to spread the horror and the infection. Much was still to be learned. What he had come to do must be finished and there was no room for weakness in his heart now. Even if he were to die in the doing Jonathan must complete his mission for the good of all mankind.

Harker staggered to the chamber door and tried the handle. It was no surprise to him that it was locked; there could be no budging a panel made of such sturdy timber. He slumped against the door in a moment of tired defeat, trying to clear his thoughts and think of what to do next. He had to escape from this prison and the window presented the only exit by which such a deed might be accomplished. It would be a dangerous and difficult descent, but from ledge to ledge, and buttress to buttress if his strength and his courage did not fail him he might make it out alive. But he felt so weak. It was most definitely a crazy thought to scale the outer walls of Castle Dracula. How could it ever be accomplished? Jonathan moved shakily to a little table, a swift fortification of brandy may make his blood pump faster, may give him a little more strength; he freed the stopper of a decanter and poured a generous glass, but before he could drink it he put his hands up to his neck. How violently hot and painful it felt. Agony and horror seared itself into his features. He knew then where the blood had come from, the blood that splattered his clothing and stained his fingers. It was his blood, his very own ichors; his life force. Hurriedly he rummaged in his tote bag and found a small rectangular traveller's mirror. There, reflected in the chromatic glass, was the hideous truth, the twin _cicatrices-_ the bite of the vampire. With a terrible agony he understood exactly what had happened to him and that he was now infected and forever doomed. Harker dropped the mirror and buried his face in his hands. He sobbed because he knew that he might never see Lucy again, and he sobbed for redemption and forgiveness from the God in whom he had never believed. This then was his punishment, his mortal existence forfeit to the perversity of demons. He looked up to Lucy's portrait and he begged silently that she might forgive him his infidelity. Jonathan knew that he would never see her again. Trembling he opened his diary.

"_I have become a victim of Dracula and the woman in his power. It may be that I am doomed to be one of them. I can only pray that whoever finds my body will possess the knowledge to do what is necessary to release my soul. I have lost a day. Soon it will be dark. While my senses are still my own, I must do what I set out to do. I must find the resting place of Dracula and, there, end his existence forever. Soon it will be sundown, and they will walk again. I do not have much time."_

From his traveller's case Harker took out a bound and corded leather pouch and forced its bulk firmly into his right coat pocket. Into his left pocket he placed his diary and with one last glance at the chamber door he opened the window and clambered through.

Harker did not know where his strength came from, perhaps it was born of determination, but he did not waver in his task. Clambering through the window he looked down. The drawbridge and the stream were over thirty metres below, and Jonathan felt his head spin. Down there too he knew was the crypt to which he must go to perform a heinous rite to obliterate the undead flesh of Dracula from the earth. With effort Jonathan hauled himself up to the sill and squeezed through, turning as he did so and facing the wall, gripping the lintel and stretching his toes till they found the ledge. The wind whistled in his ear and Jonathan wavered but he managed somehow to grip the carved mouldings and buttresses and descend, step by faltering step to the ground below. How his fingers ached and wanted to let go. He knew he could not go back and he trembled with fear and the fear spurred his determination. When Jonathan's feet finally touched the ground it was already very late afternoon, and almost exhausted from his exertion he gave one last glance up to the high window from which he had crawled and shuddered. The sun was turning red even as he made his way down the winding mountain path, but Jonathan staggered as fast as his weakened legs would take him. The landslide of great boulders that had caused the road to be impassable was now oddly clear, as if some great force had played at marbles and had swept them away and over the edge of the sylvan world, clearing the road. Tall pines had snapped with the impact of tumbling rocks and the boulders had carved a channel into the steep forestry. There was no time to ponder this magic for he must return to the castle before the sun gave up its reign to the moon. At last, upon reaching the shrine Jonathan crossed himself and tucked the journal away safely behind the figure of Mary. He hadn't even time to offer up a tiny prayer for his soul even if he had know one to recite, and now that the sun was very low and dropping between the Borgo Pass Harker must climb the road upward again. All the while he climbed Jonathan fought his anxiety but thinking that he did what he had to do for Lucy's sake. His research had told him that the only way to destroy a vampire was to either expose its body to the purifying rays of the sun or to drive a wooden stake through its heart. It was almost night again. The stakes in his pocket would have to serve.

When at length Harker finally looked down upon that narrow and grated door standing slightly ajar at the bottom of the wooden drawbridge, his breath was dry in his wounded throat and his heart beat wildly within his chest. The foul stench rushed up through the grating, like the stink from a sewer, and it was much stronger and sicklier than it had been before. It almost made him gag to do it but he placed his foot on the first step and then there was no turning back. He only half understood what horrors he would find down there, the vampire woman reposing in her desecrated adytum and Dracula, Lord of the Dead, both upon the brink of a new and terrible waking. Trembling Jonathan descended.

The door opened wider of its own accord as he came up to it, opened upon a twilit tumuli in which two stone sarcophagi dominated the small space. From the parapet Harker looked down upon Dracula. The vampire Count lay in his terrible box on a quilt of grave soil, replete and sleeping as only the undead sleep, his head resting on a faded velvet pillow. The inner sides of his tomb were splattered with gore. Littered about the floor were the flesh-stripped remains of those unfortunate enough to have stumbled upon this chamber of horrors or of those abducted to it, some of the bones still had decomposing ribbons of meat and maggots clinging to them, a wall was lined with grinning skulls. The naked, white corpse of a young woman lay slumped against Dracula's crypt, her throat a sickening circle of torn skin. Her severed head lay on the floor nearby with dead eyes looking blindly up at Harker. Jonathan realised that hers had been the scream that had awoken him from his nightmare of Lucy and he wanted to vomit but he quelled his nausea, and steadying himself he entered and descended the last six steps to Satan. His eyes took in the starkness of that awful room. A pervading cold wetness clung to the walls and penetrated through to his skin.

Harker came up before Dracula's crypt and glared at the demon. As it rested at length in the narrow confines of its box it appeared almost as any other man would appear, only wrapped up in a cinereous shroud and swimming in blood. The stink wafting upward from the coffin was awful. Dracula lay supine in his crêpe and a mantle of shadows fell across his face. Harker could just define the shape of the vampire's nose and lips; the mouth was slightly agape, a dark red flow of blood streaming from the corners. Jonathan glimpsed too the pointed yellow tips of the devil's cruel incisors showing over the stained smear of his bottom lip. Here was the man Harker had come to destroy, the scourge that had blighted centuries and had been kept alive by drinking the blood of the innocent. Harker felt a rush of anger go through him. While this thing lay slumbering in its coffin the families of its victims mourned and buried their kin. If they were unlucky those murdered unfortunates entered into the ranks of the undead and returned to roam the darkness and decimate, spreading Dracula's blight far and wide. That the creature should exist at all was hideous and unthinkable, yet while it slept it had no power over the living, only in the night could it seduce and feed. The world of science would have to wait for an explanation now; for Jonathan knew that he had to destroyed this creature while he had the chance. The risk that it should ever leave this place and spread its contamination into the world was too great, and besides, it had caressed and penetrated into his core with black and exciting raptures. Jonathan could never wash away that stain. Dracula and his woman promised something beyond what was loathsome, something that had made Harker hate part of himself. It was a revolting thought that he had somehow wanted the Count's perverse familiarity and just for that one split second he had been torn between revulsion and desire. This creature was disgusting. It was a filthy power that imbued them, these things of the Pit, the power to seduce and to render you helpless before killing you. The truth of it was sickening.

The blood had begun to pound in Jonathan's ears, thumping and drumming and the foetid air had become electric. From far off, beyond the perimeters of this cursed realm a storm was gathering, the muted echo of approaching thunder seemed to sound after Harker's every heartbeat. For a minute Jonathan froze and then he realised he must linger no more, the jaundiced light of the sun was being devoured and the circular leaded portal in the wall was dimming. He tore himself away from the Count and quickly crossed to the woman's coffin. She slept too, awaiting the death of the sun to liberate her from her daylight gilded prison. Jonathan beheld the torn dress, the blood stained bosom and the scarlet painted row of needle sharp teeth. On the lip of the sarcophagus he placed the leather pouch that he had stuffed earlier into his pocket and undid the laces. A half-dozen foot-long whittled stakes rattled together as he did so; in the wallet was also a mallet. What he had to do next made his nerves quake, but he placed the point of the stake beside the woman's left nipple and raising the mallet in his other hand, slammed it down with all the force he could muster.

A torrent of blood shot up from the vampire's breast, a spray that dotted Harker's face and splashed upon his lips.

The woman screamed and Dracula's eyes sprang open.

The last trace of sunlight surrendered to the gathering ranks of black storm clouds. Again the hammer fell and Harker almost collapsed with the exertion of his failing strength. The vampire woman shuddered violently and the gout of blood stemmed its flow. There were no more cries of agony from within the coffin. A battered nail of wood protruded from the creature's rent breast. Even as Harker watched she began to decompose, her ravishingly beautiful face fell in upon a sea of worms that vomited from the apertures of her nostrils. Her nose collapsed, and a vile tide of sick liquescence poured forth from her mouth. The stench was dreadful, putrid gasses rose out of a carcass that had existed as the living dead for an age uncounted. The maggots ate away her lips and her sharp teeth were laid bare, the gums shrivelled and her once viridescent eyes collapsed.

Even as Harker looked on the woman's limbs hung by fraying ribbons of rancid muscle and ligament. Jonathan could see the yellow of her bones poking through the holes that were ripping open in her rotting skin. Sickened he turned away and took up another stake.

But it was too late. The vault turned gravid and the disk of the sun had died a hopeless death, but only shadows were witness. A storm was moving in over the Carpathians, the sky blackening to pitch in the passing of a moment.

Dracula's coffin was empty.

Thunder faint and distal sounded in the heights of the Borgo Pass. In a strip of lightning Harker beheld a shade glide down the wall of the outer stairs. It had the shape of wings, huge demon wings and it engulfed the doorframe and flooded the crypt with a blackness that swallowed the clandestine vampire hunter's flesh. Harker dropped the hammer and the stake, he knew they were useless and that nothing could help him now, not stake or cross, not even faith. There was no time to whisper Lucy's name, wasn't even time to offer up a useless entreaty to God. He was weak from blood loss and exertion and the night blinded him and his fate was sealed, it had been from the very first moment he had entered into this realm of the damned.

Terror almost stopped the thudding of his heart. The beating wings of the nightmare blotted out the young man's face and the door slammed with a crash that synchronised its boom to a clap of thunder. Within the crypt was nothingness then, a vast, long and endless impenetrable eternity of utter darkness.

Reel Four

Night swallowed the storm and as the thunder dissipated over the Carpathians the darkness gave in to daylight. The globe circled the sun twice more and the moon was a sterling nymph who stole through a high dome of deep purple. At the end of a week a carriage arrived in Klausenburgh and stopped outside the hamlet's inn. Though the tavern bore no name it was easily located, being the only establishment of its kind in the village. Its frontage was marked by a hanging sign on which were painted two crossed golden keys; leaded windows looked out upon the paved street and shadowy figures could be glimpsed within. The faint metallic tintinnabulation of some musical automata was filtering from inside.

A middle-aged man in muted garb stepped down from the vehicle and looked about. There was little to be seen by way of activity; a baker's shop was closed and no one tended the forge at the blacksmith's, there weren't even any children about. Everything was listless and seemed on the verge of death. A pall of silence seemed to strangle the little town and would not give up its grip.

The robust innkeeper moved lethargically amid his half-dozen patrons, nodding to them as he walked under a high oaken beam. Suspended from this were a variety of curious objects, lanterns, harness straps and the like, but mostly there were dangling bunches of garlic and sprigs of the tuba's lilac coloured flowers bound together with coarse twine. The garlic gave off a faint but not unpleasant odour. He walked to his musical box, a new contraption that he had only just purchased from a Kleinenburgh catalogue, something that his heart had longed for, though he never would have admitted to the fact; something for which he had saved his coin and finally indulged.

The music box had arrived two months earlier and the innkeeper, with much excitement had overseen its placement near the entrance door so that all who entered his establishment must notice and admire it at once. His was not just any old inn, his was the finest, as least he thought so, where sweet music could be heard and all could be happy and relaxed. He thought to himself, when all and everything in this part of the world was dark and miserable, why should there not be something beautiful like music? The local farmers had all protested and joked that they had no need for music nor for foolish whims; they thought him a fool and gently laughed at his indulgence but he did not care. He justified his guilty pleasure by sturdily professing that the instrument was primarily an entertainment for his customers, and who were they but his customers? They had laughed at him again because they knew he had really acquired it for his own enjoyment, not theirs and they cared little about such things. Toys like the music box were for fancy hotels and the sitting parlours of city people. Standing before the great box he looked at his own translucent reflection in the buffed glass and listened to the tones it conjured out of air. His image seemed to float like the glorious notes it played when he wound it with its brass key. The tinkling sound let him daydream for a while, it entranced the landlord and he never ceased to be fascinated by the great, perforated wheel that rotated behind the glass and the springs and cogs that met in wondrous synchronisation to make that pretty sound. It made his tavern somehow special though the inn itself was but a humble stopover for those who deigned to venture into these rustic parts and was typically outfitted for only the most basic of needs. The music box had indeed been a luxury. He tapped a box of snuff and drew the powder in with a quick breath and then, in the middle of his pleasure, the entry door pushed wide.

Everyone in the tavern looked to the new arrival.

The innkeeper clicked a lever and the music stilled, the wheel ceased its final revolution and he too turned to look at his new guest. To his disappointment the newcomer paid the music box no heed.

"Good day, sir," he said to the stranger and he was cordially polite, but there was a hint of undeniable suspicion in the tone of his voice. He did not trust strangers and this one was no local.

The stranger cast a long glance about the inn before replying. He saw the usual rural pictures; the platters, the kegs and the steins, but his eye also noted the hanging garlic. The landlord was inwardly offended that his musical contraption did not seem to make a visual impression on the visitor, everyone who came here was supposed to notice it and remark upon its singular merit. Not this one, he only proceeded to remove his gloves and when he'd done that he barely managed a smile.

"Good day. May I have a brandy, please?" he said and blew a warm breath on his fingers. It was so much colder up here in the Transylvanian Alps than in Karlstadt, the air was thinner and the sunshine wan.

"Certainly, sir," returned the innkeeper, his manner though seemingly convivial was really far from it. Hesitantly he strode off to the bar. "Travelling far?"

"Not much farther I hope." The stranger looked around the room. Six unmoving sets of eyes were all fixed on him; six sets of ears all listened intently to every word uttered but nobody made a sound. The man pushed his gloves into a coat pocket and moved toward a crackling fireplace where he might warm his hands. As he did so his eyes made a second sweep of all the impassive faces that stared back at him. Intuition told him all was not quite right here and that these people were trying desperately to hide their unmistakable fear by attempting to show no emotion at all. He turned and addressed the landlord: "Is it possible to have a meal?" His hand released a number of gold coins onto the counter; they spun circles, catching the firelight like tiny suns and then collapsed flat on the timber.

"Well, yes sir." The landlord cast a glance to the kitchen entry and called out, "Inga!" Looking back to his guest he poured and passed the brandy. "Only a simple one I'm afraid, sir." He scooped up the coinage as he spoke but his words were not an apology.

The stranger sipped his drink.

"Your change, sir."

"Thank you."

The innkeeper moved out from behind the counter, continuing to talk as he did this.

"We don't get many travellers in these parts, not those who stop anyway."

He eyed the newcomer warily, wanting him gone from his tavern; his intuition boded that no good would come of this stranger.

Inga appeared in the doorframe tying up her apron strings. She was young and had a pretty, pleasing face. She smiled at the stranger.

But the stranger was not to be so easily distracted. "You had one a few days ago I believe, a Mr. Harker."

Inga blanched and the stranger took note.

"Harker, sir?" The stranger knew instantly that the landlord was acting deliberately vague; he placed his brandy upon the counter and pulled a black leather wallet from his inner coat pocket.

"Yes, he's a friend of mine. He wrote to me from this address."

"Not here, sir," denied the landlord.

Inga interrupted the two men. "I remember the gentleman; he gave me a letter to post." She seemed happy that she could be of help.

"Hold your tongue girl!" snapped the innkeeper and Inga's sunny smile melted instantly from her lips. She looked away from the stranger then cast her glance down to her feet and reprimanded dared not look up again.

Removing a single, folded sheet of white paper from the wallet the stranger held it out before Inga. The landlord's face turned livid.

"Was this the letter?"

Inga refused to look but the stranger was insistent. The young woman risked a quick glance. "I'm not sure."

"Perhaps you'll remember the name," pressed the stranger, "Doctor Van Helsing?"

Inga shook her head and reiterated, "I'm not sure."

The innkeeper had puffed up his cheeks and the florid tinge of anger was spreading over his face. "Go and prepare a meal for this gentleman." He demanded sharply, glaring at the girl with bulging eyes. "At once, do you hear me?" He pointed in the direction of the kitchen and obediently Inga hurried from the tavern bar leaving the two men to stand-off eye to eye.

Unperturbed Doctor Van Helsing refolded the letter and tucked it back into his wallet. He picked up his brandy and took another sip. It was time to extract the truth and he was not going to be fobbed off, he knew the innkeeper was lying; there was no doubt about that.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked quietly. A pin might have fallen with the sound of a canon shot; it seemed that nobody dared even to take a breath.

The landlord was struggling to remain civil; his face had reddened to an even brighter shade than it was before. "I don't understand you."

As if to emphasise his words Van Helsing moved away from the burly landlord and lifted his glass to the crossbeam. "Why all these garlic flowers?" He pointed in another direction, "And over the window?" With his empty hand he reached up and touched a bunch of garlic bulbs. "And up here?"

Briskly the proprietor caught him up and his eyes flared with fear and dread, his words stifled in his throat.

"They're not for decoration are they?" Van Helsing challenged.

With a florid gesture the inn's owner refuted Van Helsing's claim, "I don't know what you're talking about." His eyes glared angrily, telling Van Helsing to leave at once and not come back.

"I think you do and I think you know something about my friend." Van Helsing cast a rapid glance over the provincial faces that sat mute and tense, watching and listening. "He came here with a purpose- to help you."

"We haven't asked for any help," seethed the landlord.

"You need it all the same," Van Helsing returned coolly.

"Look, sir," the innkeeper shook his head and lowered his tone, struggling to keep his temper in check, "You're a stranger here in Klausenburgh. Some things are best left alone- such as interfering in things which are beyond our powers."

"Now please don't misunderstand me," said Van Helsing, his voice calm and even, just as it had been from the very first moment he had spoken. "This is more than a superstition. I know the danger is very real." Van Helsing was all too aware of those 'things' beyond the powers of comprehension and he of all people believed. Once again he pointed to the garlic, signalling without the need for explanation its significance and purpose. "If the investigation that Mr. Harker and I are engaged upon is successful," he spoke calmly but clearly, "not only you but the whole world will benefit." He paused and waited for the weight of his words to sink in. "Castle Dracula is somewhere here in Klausenburgh. Will you tell me how to get there?"

The room became as chill as the tomb. Nobody moved and nobody spoke, for to speak, to acknowledge the existence of evil might bring some awful calamity down upon the heads of all under the inn's roof. Naming the house of the Devil made the innkeeper blanch as if he'd been struck in the face.

"You ordered a meal, sir," he said, seething with poorly masked hostility, "as the innkeeper, it is my duty to serve you." Inga reappeared carrying a tray with bread and milk. "When you've eaten, I ask you to go and leave us in peace." He sealed his lips into a tight line and it was obvious that he would say no more. He turned away from Van Helsing as if the man did not exist.

"Your meal will be ready in a minute sir," the servant girl said with a subdued smile, "if you'd like to take a seat."

"Thank you." Van Helsing nodded but knew he had to get to the truth; he had to rest a moment and think this business through. It was going to be virtually impossible to obtain any helpful information from this lot and it made him inwardly angry. Were they so scared or were they so stupid that they refused to believe someone could help them? He creased his brow in perturbation and unbuttoned his coat, unwound his scarf and placed in over the back of a chair while Inga set the tray on the table before him. She fussed momentarily, placing the knot of bread and pot of milk to one side, watching the innkeeper cautiously from the corner of her eye. When she was certain that he had passed from earshot and was not looking she lifted a white napkin to reveal the corner of a red bound volume underneath.

"A gypsy traveller found this at the crossroads near that place," she whispered to Van Helsing. "_He_ told me to burn it." She shrugged discretely in the direction of the innkeeper. "But your friend was such a nice gentleman, I couldn't." Before Van Helsing could question her further she turned and walked quickly back to the kitchen. Van Helsing, keeping a prudent eye on the landlord gently lifted the napkin so that it still covered the book but revealed the handwritten text within. A look of anguish etched itself in his features as he realised he was looking at Jonathan Harker's diary and that this could mean but one thing- here were recorded his friend's last words. It was almost a certainty that Jonathan was dead.

Or worse, if the truth were at all possible!

Van Helsing had trekked the long mountainous route to Castle Dracula. It had been difficult but he had been able to convince the innkeeper to let him rent a gig so that he could drive himself. Since nobody dared go near the place nobody else's life needed to be imperilled, what he must do he must do alone. What he had come to seek had many an eon ago been birthed in a suite of shadows and it was a thing redolent with the stink of the grave, he knew this, they all knew this, but why they didn't do something about it stumped him. He came to the roadside shrine where Harker had left his diary but he did not stop there, and although it was still the morning, time was of the imperative. To the left the road began a narrow ascent and in one spot it appeared that the trees on the slope had been snapped in half like giant matchsticks. A terrible misgiving that a coach might have ploughed over the precipice made Van Helsing risk a glance from his gig but the gorge was too deep to see anything definite. A short time later the horse and trap had driven into the shadow thrown down upon the earth from the great edifice of Castle Dracula. The castle stood arrogant and inflexible against earth, air, fire and water and nothing composed of these elements ever changed its ageless symmetry. It was ominous and devoid of any warmth, even Van Helsing's breath gelled as mist in the atmosphere. No glamour though could cast magic into Van Helsing's eye and he saw the castle for what it was, a dreadful, phallus-like structure perched upon the precipice of the world, ready to rape and destroy the unwary. He pulled his vehicle to a halt and looked across the drawbridge, shuddering at how cold it was. The Doctor leapt down and tethered his buggy to a post and walked the last few yards to stand on the wooden bridge that separated him from the domain of the damned.

All was deathly quiet. There was no wind sighing and no birds singing, the only sound that fell upon his ears was the torrent of the icy mountain stream as it plummeted over the edge at the eastern corner of the castle. It was the sudden intrusion of what sounded like canon fire that made him look sharply about as a team of black horses came thundering over the narrow timber bridge. Madly they were dashing directly toward him. Barely had Van Helsing time enough to leap to the side before the black-plumed funeral carriage tore across the drawbridge, its whirling spokes an invisible blur as it raced by, its cloaked driver whipping the dark horses into hell flight. The force of its passing and the leap aside had slammed Van Helsing against a stone pylon, from its roost a great carved eagle glared threateningly down. For a moment Van Helsing was stupefied as he watched the hearse disappear from view, catching a glimpse of a white coffin with gilded trims among all the black. He wondered about the hearse, for nobody at the inn had mentioned it, especially as it would have had to pass through Klausenburgh to get to this destination. How could they have missed seeing it? Perhaps they had deliberately ignored it like they seemed to ignore everything else. Inwardly Van Helsing despised them for their cowardice. Straightening he brushed the dust from his coat and entered the deserted fortress.

Crossing the threshold Van Helsing entered the parlour and stepped into deeper silence. He called out "Harker" but only the ghost of his own voice reverberated about the high vaulted climes. Glancing around furtively he could see nothing that spoke of his friend's presence, so he took to that great staircase two steps at a time and ran along the gallery. "Harker," he called again. He came upon another staircase and this one led up into darkness. Cupping his hands to his mouth Van Helsing tried once more- "Harker!' There was no response; he didn't really expect one because his heart was full of foreboding. This place was a deserted warren in which you could lose yourself and never be found. The stairs brought him to another gallery and at the far end a door stood ajar.

"Harker," Van Helsing half-whispered as he paused at the portal of that room, and pushing the thick oaken panel fully open beheld the chamber in the weak sunlight that filtered in through a diamond paned window. Half of the window was open and a chill breath of air poured in; Van Helsing shivered. The room was wreckage. The bedding had been stripped and shredded, papers were strewn all about, a regiment of chessmen had been knocked over on their board, some were scattered on the floor; others lay decapitated. Jonathan's luggage had been violated and the contents strewn and ripped to pieces. Upon the walls were black splashes where Harker's ink bottles had been thrown and smashed, the young man's shirts had been shredded as if by animal claws. Rushing into the room Van Helsing almost slipped on the debris. Broken glass crunched under Van Helsing's boots. He looked frantically about, not knowing what it was he was looking for, but then his eye fell upon an object glittering in the wan light and the litter. He knelt down to retrieve it. It was the frame that had held Lucy's portraits, but now the glass was smashed and the pictures had been torn out. Only one triangle of photographic paper remained in a corner, the broken glass nicked Van Helsing's gloved finger as he pulled the paper free. A trickle of blood seeped through the leather and smeared the ghostly outline of Lucy's white shoulder and throat. Terrible thoughts entered Van Helsing's head, more dreadful than he ever dared think before. He dropped the corner of paper and it blew away in a sudden wind that rushed about the room, settling near the left hand branch of a broken crucifix made of jet, a holy trinket that had slipped through a silver chain and fallen to the floor. In his haste Van Helsing failed to notice. He had to find Jonathan and he knew what he had to do.

Like the door to the room above, the door at the bottom of the narrow divide stood open. A loathsome stench poured out, sickening enough to keep any living soul from ever entering. Van Helsing too stood at the doorway and looked in and he too, as Harker had done before, peered into the gloom. Inside the doorframe he looked down and saw the decapitated peasant girl, her ragged neck flyblown and maggoty, and her skin bloated and marbled. He now half-understood the fear that gripped the sensibilities of the bucolic locals, why they sealed their tongues and denied the existence of the Devil. He diverted his eyes and put his hand up to his nose in a feeble attempt to block the stench but it was useless. At last he looked down into a stone box and saw that which he'd hoped not to see. Harker lay in Dracula's coffin with his hands folded over his belly. There was no evidence of breathing and though not one hair was out of place a ghastly change seemed to have altered Harker's features in some unnameable way. The young man's face was white and his eyes were closed, but the sharp tips of canine teeth protruded from his mouth, and he was smiling. The smile was almost carnal, suggesting that in his new and awful life from death Jonathan knew pleasure and hedonistic delight. The thought sent a shudder through Professor Van Helsing and he turned away in disgust.

At the lip of another crypt Van Helsing saw the stakes resting where Jonathan had left them. He descended the six steps and walked over to the coffin. Inside he looked upon the putrescent remains of what had once been a woman. There were no more worms, they had eaten the last of her undead flesh and transformed in swarms of flies, but her skeleton lay skewed in the ragged remains of a dress. One of the stakes stood erect in her rib cage. A reaction of loathing at the proof of this horror and what had occurred was written in Van Helsing's face. As he turned away Van Helsing heard the chink of timber on timber, and saw at his feet the hammer and the stake that Jonathan had dropped, the sliver of wood intended for Dracula's black heart. He picked them up and approached Jonathan Harker's terrible bower. Harker's mouth was now open and the fangs of the vampire were long and lethal and sharp, studding his gums with a row of pointed awls. His eyes had opened too, but they seemed blinded because they did not so much as blink. Here then was the final evidence that Jonathan could be counted no longer among the living. Van Helsing passed the stake into the hand in which he held the mallet and took off his hat, laying it aside. He must do it now before he lost his nerve. What lay in the coffin was no longer his friend but a monster that would feed on the blood of the living. It had to be destroyed. He passed the stake back and placed its tip over Jonathan's heart and smashed the hammer down swiftly and violently.

Reel Five

Down to the garden gate they ran, past the white and pink roses and the unfledged ivy that climbed all over the wall just outside Lucy's bedroom.

"I am going to catch you," Lucy called out and laughed, her quarry, the Housemaid's little daughter Tania, giggled and kept on running.

"No you won't," the girl called back, skipping as fast as her little legs could go.

"Oh yes I will," insisted Lucy, coming up close behind Tania, catching her and giving her a squeeze. The little girl dropped down to the grass and squealed. They lay rolling about on the lawn for a while, each tickling and poking at the other. Lucy thought the smell of the fresh cut grass wonderful as she rolled onto her back and looked up at the cloudless blue sky. She wondered what Jonathan was doing at this very moment and whether he was thinking of her.

"You are thinking of somebody," Tania teased, "and that person is not me."

"You are so silly," Lucy brushed her fingers through Tania's hair. Tania was such a pretty little girl and Lucy hoped deep within her heart that she would be blessed with so lovely a child one day soon. That day seemed like a century away and for that matter, so was Jonathan. Why had he been so mysterious about his journey, not even giving a clue as to when he might be expected to come back? Thinking about this only depressed Lucy and she did not want to feel sad today.

"Shall we go down to the arbour?" Lucy asked Tania.

"Oh yes, let's do. We can sit among the roses."

"And I can read to you," added Lucy.

"A good story, I hope. Not like the book you left there the other day. I know because I found it. It did not have any pictures in it though," Tania complained. "I'll bet it is not very interesting."

"I should not expect you to understand," Lucy laughed. "It is my own personal little book that I write in, but you looked inside Tania, really!" Lucy's reprimand was gentle.

"I only just looked to see if it had any pictures" said Tania, her lips trembling slightly, her big eyes widening. "I hope I wasn't being naughty. After all you did forget to bring it with you when you came up to the house."

"No my little one," Lucy tenderly kissed the little girl's cheek, "you were not being naughty, just curious."

"Will you read it to me Aunt Lucy?"

"No," Lucy replied distractedly, for a strange thought had abruptly filtered into her head- some broken, troubled fragment about Jonathan. She shuddered visibly and Tania reached over and placed her warm little hand on Lucy's arm.

"Aunt Lucy?"

Lucy slowly turned her head and looked into Tania's face. "How innocent" she thought, "pure and innocent. Can it last?"

"Can what last, Aunt Lucy?" asked Tania, a concerned furrow creasing her angel's brow. Not realising she had spoken aloud, Lucy ignored the question.

"I won't read my little book to anybody. It's not that sort of book." The woman bit down on her lower lip. A weird and unpleasant anguish was opening dark petals within her soul. She tried to push the sensation away, but its stain seemed indelible and would not be removed.

"I don't understand," replied Tania, confused. A book that nobody read didn't make any sense to her at all.

"Come on," said Lucy, taking hold of Tania's sweet little hands and helping her to her feet. "We'll have cake afterwards. Would you like that?" The little girl nodded happily and smiled and the two danced on the lawn. "First things first though," said Lucy, "we should go get that book." Giggling they skipped down to the arbour.

Petals fell from old blooms like silken teardrops as they passed through the gate, Lucy putting out a hand to catch some in her palm. Accidentally she pricked her finger on a thorn and a tiny floret of blood welled to the tip. It came flooding in again, that horrible, doom-laden notion that a great juggernaut were approaching that could not be stopped. As if caught in a dream she momentarily felt as if she were somewhere else, in a place where something dark reigned and where her throat slid over a sliver of glass. She looked at the tip of her finger and at the redness of her blood and with her other hand felt her neck. A light smear of crimson daubed her lily white skin where the bloody fingertip had touched.

"Are you hurt, Aunt Lucy?" questioned Tania, very concerned.

"No my sweet," said Lucy, suddenly parched and thirsty, as if her mouth and throat had caught fire. She put her finger to her mouth. The speckle of blood stained her lips and welled up on her tongue. The blood tasted like nectar, repellent and yet somehow delicious, but it did not slack her thirst. She didn't understand. A change was happening to her, within and without, a sense of something that was impossible to fathom, and it was drawing her into its web like a fly spins to trap the moth. Lucy already felt the threads binding her bones unravelling. The spell thrilled and frightened her at once and in the terrible confusion of it all she could only wait though waiting was timeless and a minute might as well have been a millennium. For a brief moment she had completely forgotten about Jonathan.

When Lucy and Tania came up to the arbour the roses had gone wild, three steps up to a niche trimmed in the foliage they sat down upon a bench and thereon was Lucy's own diary. Roses and mottled shadows covered lattices and the arbour was cool, perhaps a little too chill, for the day had passed the hour of two. In the shades they sat and Lucy retrieved her book, she closed her eyes and Tania stretched out on the bench, laying her head in Lucy's lap. The child began humming a broken melody. Lucy hardly heard for her mind had drifted somewhere far away.

Under the lattice with its over-mantle of compound leaves and prickly stems the afternoon seemed to slip by as a dream slips by. Tania ceased humming and drifted into sleep, and Lucy sighed. She put down her volume with its gilded edgework and took a pencil from a pocket in her skirts. A little breeze began to ruffle the tissue thin pages but Lucy held them down and began to write.

"_I love you, my dearest …" _

But she found that she couldn't remember who it was that she was professing her love for. Before the sentence was finished she felt an empty space forming about her body, her hand ceased its passage across the page and her mind receded into nothingness. A shrivelled bloom fell from a withering stem, spilling ashen petals into the open diary. Lucy closed the book upon them and set it down on the bench beside. She watched Tania sleeping until her eyes no longer saw the child's rosy cheeks and cupid lips. A strange cloud had blown in from the nothing and Lucy, not moving, not even to smile, hardly breathing, closed her eyes and they were filled with dark light. Jonathan was not there, but something else soon would be, something dark and ominous, and alluring and dangerous. Whatever it was it had passed through time, dreadful and yet glorious only to find Lucy. This was the terrible paradox, she knew it, was certain. Whatever force was coming was far from passive, but rather she sensed its ravenous and dangerous subversion of her world. Its search for fulfilment would find her and she would be changed when it found her, changed but elated beyond all worldly measure.

Doctor Van Helsing sat in the Holmwood parlour. He was not given too often to emotional discomfort and hated becoming too attached to people. This was not because he possessed a frozen heart, but rather was given to the tenable object of reality. He had come to see Arthur Holmwood because he now must relate some terrible news, and people always took bed news emotionally. Despite his cool demeanour he knew this interview would be one of those rare occasions that might cause a degree of stress even unto himself. The Holmwood's, from what Jonathan had told Van Helsing, were a relatively private people who were not open to much by the way of change. Even courting Lucy had proven difficult, and Jonathan had once confided to Van Helsing that Arthur Holmwood's approval had been a tough nut to crack. Arthur Holmwood had made his money trading and manufacturing cottons and linen and harboured a wish that his sister marry someone who was self sufficient. Jonathan, being a scholar and historian, perhaps did not meet with the particular criteria that Holmwood requested. Although these people were not overly wealthy, neither were they poor; their station was affable but not ostentatious. The task ahead was going to be difficult. What Van Helsing had to tell them would be complex and testing indeed and he felt certain that the Holmwood's would fail to understand. How could he tell them? Although it must require a disagreeable falsity, Van Helsing knew he could never utter the exact truth, for no one would believe the truth. In an effort to avoid the inevitable Van Helsing turned his mind to the mundane, taking in his surrounds in the hope of diverting his thoughts but the rather conservative decors proved depressing. In this house everything spoke of the perfect where nothing was allowed to be out of place and where a mote of dust on the mantle over the fireplace would be forbidden. The house, though not cold, was not welcoming either. Van Helsing had never met with the Holmwood's before, but perhaps his ambivalent feelings about them would prove untrue and ungrounded, yet the house used a voice of its own to tell him that things had stagnated here. If there was comfort then it was a cold comfort and if there was love then it was a love that had bred an unspoken disapproval for obvious affection. An almost palpable suggestion of jeopardy seemed to emanate from the decors. An involuntary frisson passed through Van Helsing's frame. Something was not quite right, the heart of this home was cold. Van Helsing could not shake the notion that his news would further strengthen this chill and that the Holmwood house must only grow colder.

The unwelcoming house sat waiting with him, silent in its perfidy. The windows were curtained with heavy drapes, wide, tasselled sashes held them open, an oriental fan, a lute, pretty pastoral paintings and china, everything seemed to speak of cosy yet it was all so very superficial and lifeless at the same time. Doctor Van Helsing had never met any of the people who lived here, but the house spoke for them in a strange and sober voice. They wanted so obviously to project that they were comfortable in their chilly abode, that they were rational and reasonable people, but their cool and rationale was different to his. This interview would be made difficult by that fact alone. The of course there was the dreadful business that had brought Van Helsing here, he couldn't get around that gently, but he would have to lie. He was about to discuss the death of Arthur Holmwood's sister's fiancée and although he was calm, his inner composure belied the terrible issue he had come to confer.

When the Holmwood's emerged from their rooms to greet him and the moment come upon him to tell them what had happened to Jonathan, Doctor Van Helsing found that he could not do it. He could only tell them that the young man had died. The statement was short and direct and quite naturally Mr. Holmwood and his wife Mina had both responded with disbelief.

Mrs. Holmwood blanched slightly and sat down in a floral upholstered chair opposite Van Helsing, her husband standing by her right side. Although disbelieving she did not appear to be the type of woman given to fits of fainting or the 'vapours' when presented with unpleasant and shocking revelation. Van Helsing could not ignore the fact that she was very beautiful, her golden hair piled up and styled with jewelled combs; she wore a blue-silver satin gown with a white silk magnolia pinned at the centre of her neckline. The only other jewellery that adorned her was a wedding ring and two diamond earrings that caught the light and flashed like brilliants. Even these subtle ornamentations spoke much about the restrained and conservative person within. Her mouth was perfect and crimson though she wore no rouge and her eyes were the colour of the sea where its deeps were sky dyed. Van Helsing did not usually have the pleasure of such beautiful company, but he sensed reserve in her countenance and did not stare. He did not wish to risk making Mrs. Holmwood feeling the least bit uncomfortable so he turned his gaze to Arthur.

Mr. Holmwood was a square-jawed fellow who gave off an acetic masculinity and an air of stuffiness but at this moment he appeared agitated, tight as a spring coiled to breaking point. It was evident that remaining quiescent was taking some effort on his behalf. After the awkward formal introductions had taken place Van Helsing cleared his throat and began quickly with the horrible revelation of Jonathan Harker's death.

"I'm sorry Mr. Holmwood, but I really cannot tell you anything more about how he died."

"Cannot or will not?" Arthur replied coldly.

"Whichever you wish," Van Helsing returned quietly, making a slight movement with his hand but then resting it on his knee. He sealed his thin lips and thought better of saying anything further that he might be called upon to regret. If only Jonathan had met with death under different, normal circumstances… if only…

"Dr. Van Helsing," continued Arthur in his icy tone, not to be put off so readily by a mere string of senseless words, "I am not at all satisfied. You suddenly appear and tell us that Jonathan Harker is dead and yet you will not tell us where or how he died. I find it extremely suspicious."

Van Helsing held Arthur's gaze and did not even blink. The moment edged Mrs. Holmwood toward an evident state of discomfort. "Arthur!" Mina exclaimed, touching his forearm with her slender white hand, but her husband ignored her and walked forward, closer to Van Helsing. Silently chastised and dismissed she cast her eyes to her feet.

"You have the death certificate." Van Helsing replied calmly, glancing quickly from Arthur to the beautiful woman. Was that certification of Jonathan's decease not proof enough?

"Yes," Holmwood returned sarcastically, "signed by you!" He pulled an envelope from his pocket and waved the paper before everyone's eyes.

"When did he die, Doctor?" Mina leaned forward as she ventured the question. Arthur's growing hostility was making the interview even more uncomfortable than it needed to be. Van Helsing brought his palms together and interlocked his fingers. He had barely changed his posture during the meeting and though it had only just begun it was like he had been sitting straight as a plank for what must have been an eternity.

"Ten days ago, Mrs. Holmwood."

"Ten days ago!" Arthur sounded incredulous. This was intolerable. Why had they not been informed before? "Where was he buried?"

"He was cremated."

"By whose authority?" The story become even more deplorable as it progressed, what did Van Helsing take them for, fools?

"His own," Van Helsing said flatly, adding quickly before another question was fired upon him, "and as his friend and colleague, he told me some time ago that he would wish it."

Mrs. Holmwood took in an audible breath and momentarily closed her eyes. Cremation was an unthinkable blasphemy and was only for heretics and infidels. Van Helsing noted her reaction and knew he must save these people further distress by ending this as quickly as possible. Arthur spun about on his heel, turning his back on Van Helsing and walked back to stand beside his wife. He folded the envelope and returned it to his pocket.

"You must know that Jonathan was going to marry my sister, Lucy. Surely you could have written?" The words were almost an accusation that Van Helsing was deliberately withholding information.

"I felt it would have been less of a shock if I told her personally."

Arthur threw a look of disgust at Van Helsing and retorted "I'd rather you did not see my sister!" He crossed to the fireplace mantle and shaking his head he promptly pulled the rope to summon the housemaid. He wanted to ask Van Helsing to leave his house immediately but he managed to maintain the last shred of his civility. "My wife and I will tell her."

"Very well," said Van Helsing as he rose from his chair. "I am sorry. Will you please express my sympathy to Miss Lucy? If she wishes to get in touch with me, I am at her service."

The sitting room door clicked open and the housemaid entered. She was a middle-aged, kindly faced individual dressed in black, bound up in a tight white apron. She smiled pleasantly.

"Oh, Gerda, Dr. Van Helsing is leaving." Holmwood told her. "Will you show him to the door?

"Yes, sir."

"Good day." Van Helsing bowed to Mina Holmwood and nodding to Arthur, he simply addressed him as "Sir."

The moment of impasse lingered while Gerda bowed and spoke to the Doctor. The housekeeper smiled warmly and showed Van Helsing through to the entry hall where he gathered up his hat and coat. Mina and Arthur watched silently as he departed.

When he was gone Arthur turned to his wife. He had to confess that he could not make head or tail of what Van Helsing had just told them, rather that the man had told them very little at all. Why had Van Helsing waited so long to inform them? Lucy would be devastated. She had been so ill of late that Arthur was not too sure if she should be told at all, it might only worsen her condition. It was going to be difficult, for neither he nor Mina had any of the answers to solve this dreadful mystery and make the news less horrible.

"Why all this secrecy?" Arthur's face wore a puzzled mask.

Mina shrugged her shoulders and stood up.

"Why wouldn't he tell us?" Arthur asked indignantly and Mina replied as she gently caressed his hand. "Oh darling, Doctor Van Helsing is a very eminent man. Whatever his motives, you can be sure he had a good reason for them. In any case, we can't help poor Jonathan now. Lucy is the one we must think about." She stroked his arm again as if he were a child, an unconsciously soothing caress to reassure him that she was there to support him and to help Lucy. Arthur bowed his head and looked into her deep blue eyes.

"Is she well enough to be told? It will be a terrible blow for her."

"She must know sometime," Mina told him, but her words belied the tangle of emotion roiling within her heart. Lucy had not been well of late and Mina had supposed that Arthur's dear sister had slipped into melancholia due to the absence of her beau. Telling her directly might invoke a terrible turn for the worse. "We won't disturb her afternoon rest. We'll see how she is this evening."

Arthur put his arms about her slim waist and chastely kissed her brow, and in doing so he conceded to his wife's sensibility.

Lucy had been quite ill and the sickness had come upon her suddenly. She would awake at night in a fever and feel drawn and tired during the day. Nobody seemed to know what the cause was and Doctor Seward was just as bewildered. He had prescribed a number of tonics and concoctions that simply tasted awful. None of them were of any efficacy. The only peace from the fever was sleeping, but then her sleep was plagued with nightmares and a made for a fitful substitute to peace. This afternoon the illness had been worse and Lucy had again drifted into an exhausted slumber. As she slept she dreamed and her dreams were full of conflict and confusion. She was with Jonathan and they were sitting in the churchyard of the old abbey, he was holding her hand and whispering how he loved her. She could only watch on with a detached ambivalence as his mouth formed the vows that should have bound them to each other forever. The words flowed like toneless music, echoing into discord. Lucy looked from Jonathan to the grey sky above. A pall had fallen over the abbey; at least it looked like the old abbey where they used to take walks, high up on the cliff and overlooking the sea, but it was somehow distorted and was like a ruin one might see in foreign land or a painting. He had taken her hand and had placed a ring upon her finger in proposal of marriage and she in turn had given him a filigree chain. It had glittered at her slender throat, but something told her that she no longer needed the symbol of its protection. Holding it at length she offered it to her beau and he had smiled as she clasped the chain about his neck. It has heralded an omnipresent future vision that at the moment was beyond her comprehension, but she had told Jonathan to wear the bauble for his mother's sake, even though his mother was dead. It confused her, this awful presage to doom. Was it simply because Jonathan was going away and would not tell her the root cause for his departure? She did not know. Perhaps if Jonathan wore the crucifix faith would walk with him, even though he hardly believed. Perhaps its iconography might be enough to deflect whatever threat it was that was forming in the back of her mind. Perhaps it could keep him safe- and that he would always think of her, that her unspoken fears were simply that, a silly, empty fantasy. But Jonathan always thought of Lucy anyway, he told her as much, that his mind was filled with her loveliness, even when he should be studying for his papers, even when he slept and dreamed. He told her how glorious her long auburn hair was and how he loved the light spray of freckles over her nose, somehow they made her white skin whiter. He told her how her sapphire eyes captivated and how warm her smile shone. She was everything a man would want and yet…was he everything a woman could wish for?

This thought was intrusive, perhaps even destructive, for it paved the way to unrest and unhappiness. What awful thing had blown in with the wind and settled this terrible contemplation in her mind? In the dream she hated herself for thinking this and wished herself far away and absolved from these cruel imaginings. They were truly horrible thoughts and unfair to Jonathan, the man she loved. He was gentle and kind and thoughtful and was he not the man she had promised to marry? Yet in her dreaming eye his image was fading, curling up like the roses in the arbour and turning to dust. Drained of life and vitality, Jonathan became an emptiness that dispersed in the ether. When his handsome face eventually dissolved and his words of love had trickled off into the furthermost corners of the dream, Lucy awoke. She couldn't, must not tell anybody the plague-ridden things her dream state commanded.

Bewildered to the point of stupefaction she vowed she would fight to stay awake rather than suffer the horrors again, but Hypnos always called her down to partake in little slices of death and she had no will of her own to disobey.

Lucy weakened, the fight had debilitated her and she had altered somehow, in the physical aspect she had become wan, in that of the mind her thoughts drove her to the brink of madness. No matter how hard she tried she could not prevent the fever dreams. Lucy saw Jonathan take the cross she had given him from his neck and she saw it split in two- light and darkness fell over both sides of the earth, fate crashed into her world like a comet slamming into a planet. Jonathan's vows of love became indefinable echoes that got mixed up with the explosive sound of devastation and annihilation that masqueraded as a wondrous choir singing in her head. The noise of her blood boiling in her veins rose to a horrible cacophony.

It was Mina gently shaking her that woke Lucy from her slumber. She was happy that Mina had woken her but she knew it would not be too much longer before the dark would claim her eyes and the dreams return. Perhaps it would not be long before she never woke again.

For some odd reason, Lucy didn't quite recognise Mina at first, the woman looked like an angel, golden and beautiful and leaning over her bedside. She was the image of a Seraph that Lucy and Jonathan often sat beneath in the cliff-top graveyard, her golden head ringed with the flaming aureole of a dying sun, with outstretched arms like doves' wings, her smile beatific. Mina touched Lucy's cheek. It was sad to know that Mina was not made of sculptured marble but was only composed of flesh and blood like she. Knowing this meant that Mina too must die, just as she herself, was slipping into the deep gulf called death. Yet something other burned there just beyond the reaches of the dream, Lucy knew it but she didn't understand why or even how she knew. She reached out a feeble hand and stroked Mina's cheek.

"Jonathan will be home soon, I know it." Lucy tried to sound joyous at the prospect, but her voice was listless and her movements lethargic. Her face was pale and her lips almost colourless and they betrayed her true feelings. She knew that Jonathan would not come back to her, but she had to lie to Mina, there was nothing else she could do. If she admitted to the presage of doom that clouded up her senses Mina would fret and stress and then Lucy would have no peace at all. "I'll get better when he returns, you'll see."

Lucy's words were untruths that Mina could hardly bear to hear without bringing her to the brink of tears.

"I won't be a trouble to Dr. Seward or any of you," said Lucy as she looked to the worried face of her brother standing at the foot of the bed. Arthur was just as bewildered as everyone about the sudden illness that had taken a grip on this lovely, healthy young woman.

"Lucy," Mina spoke gently, "you are no trouble to anyone." Mina folded back the rumpled sheet and smoothed it over the coverlet. How could they possibly broach the subject of Jonathan's death now? It was unthinkable. Instead Mina smiled warmly and whispered, "Now, rest. Get some sleep." It seemed a silly thing to say when the pretty young woman had been in and out of slumber all day, but Mina knew that rest was the best she could offer Lucy for the present. "You've got to get some colour back into those cheeks."

"_Sleep_," thought Lucy,_ "…there's no rest in sleep for me because sleep has no place it can call its own."_

Mina adjusted Lucy's pillow. "Good night, Lucy."

"Good night, Mina."

Arthur approached the sickly form of his sister and lightly kissed her niveous cheek. Her skin was clammy to his lips.

"Good night, Arthur."

"Sleep well," said Mina as she turned down the lamp, knowing full well that Lucy would not.

"I'll try."

Lucy forced a smile as Arthur and Mina left the room and shut the door.

The dark was whispering in her ear, she could hear it quite clearly, and it was wonderful. Some twisted sorcery had given her a sense of hearing that she had never possessed before. Lucy became auditor to an aria that sounded from the world beyond her window. She listened intently to all the notes that were and were not, to the morbidly intense musical scales of the night that invited her to a yearning, crepuscular dance all about the stifling confines of her bedroom. The song was of the spirit and the spirit dwelt in darkness. There was excitement in the black song, it made her heart beat faster and let her hear music as she had never heard it before. This calling was from the realm of things unknown, a place where stars were drawn unto destruction in the black folds of the night, where reality was blotted out, where white clouds were stirred through with ink and consumed and devoured. It was a place where a choir of dark angels sang the most beautiful music ever played for the ear. It told her to climb from her sickbed and open the French doors of her room, the doors that opened into the garden. Half-fainting from the exertion she found the strength and obeyed. Lucy pushed back her covers and got out of bed. Unsteadily she tottered to her bedroom door and paused there, holding her breath, listening till Arthur and Mina's footsteps had receded down the hall and into nothingness. When she was certain that they would not hear her moving about the room, she crept unsteadily across the cold floor and opened the French windows. She looked up to the night sky and she beheld the stars as no one alive had even seen them before. They were all the colours of the spectrum, bright blues and reds and green and gold and they swathed across the spinning galaxy and made her vision reel. The moon alone was pewter and a radiant beam spangled in the glass of the doors. In that silvered pane she caught a glimpse of herself, skin as white as the nightdress she wore, her hair a flowing red cloud lifted in the wind as it blew through, scattering a drift of desiccated leaves with its chill breath. Lucy wore a chain looped about her throat, a six-inch long crucifix that hung from a silver clasp. Lucy reached up and pulled sharply at the chain, snapping it in twain, the metal links leaving a crimson scratch on her neck. Pulling open a drawer in her bedside dresser she dropped the Christ unceremoniously into it and hastily shoved the drawer shut. When she had done this she returned to her bed and lay down, her head reeling, the room spinning with a maelstrom of whirling leaves. She heard the sound of what might have been a wolf calling to the moon and her fingertips went up to her throat and lightly touched the satiny skin of her neck. Gently Lucy stroked the two scars imprinted thereon, and scarlet blood welled forth like new born buds.

In another part of Karlstadt Doctor Van Helsing was working late, rattling his brain over the things Jonathan Harker had recorded in his diary. He was pacing up and down as he read and simultaneously concentrating on the tinny voice crackling from his gramophone. As a scientist he considered the contraption a device with which to enhance his researches and he was happy for its convenience, he could recall any piece of information at any time, simply by hooking up the trumpet and changing the waxen cylinder. He listened as he skimmed Jonathan's notes. The phonograph stylus slipped in a zigzag over it spinning waxen cylinder, the vibration and the earphone diaphragm decoding the duplication of Van Helsing's own voice. It was truly a marvel. He had a pencil in his right hand and he underlined and annotated references of interest as he paced and listened.

"…_Research on vampires."_ Van Helsing's voice spoke from the gramophone, _"Certain basic facts established."_

He ceased pacing and sat down in a chair, crossed his legs and massaged his forehead, pondering the words.

"_1: Light," _his recorded voice continued, _"the vampire allergic to light. Never ventures forth in the daytime. Sunlight fatal...repeat...fatal. Would destroy them." _

Van Helsing located a page that he had previously book marked. His note speculated as to why it was so, that the evidence suggested the photosensitive nature of the undead. His thesis proposed that vampires were ostensibly nocturnal and fanged and stealthy by nature, that they attacked quickly and violently like predatory animals and secreted themselves in dark places during the day. The grave was the perfect place to hide recumbent. The world of daylight was forbidden them and exposure to the sun's rays would scour their dead flesh and dissolve their bones. The idea of luring the vampire into the rays of the sun was gruesome and the resultant dissolution barbaric, but it constituted an ancient and purifying method by which people had defended themselves against this hideous pest.

"_2: Garlic. Vampires repelled by odour of garlic." _

The Doctor paused for a short, contemplative moment and his pencil hung in mid air. Garlic, as far as he understood, had its mythical roots in the Roman God of War, _Mars_, and this would account for its repulsive properties. This connection may also have led to the distinct scientific possibility that the properties of Garlic could somehow alter the body's chemistry. Van Helsing surmised that this ability had proved effective in repelling some species of blood-drinking insects and that in all likelihood it stood the same for human vampires as well. This thought led to the next, that vampires must sleep in a bed of their own grave earth. That the demon issued at night from his unhallowed grave to spread the infection of vampirism throughout the countryside. This fact was not contested, but Van Helsing conjectured that the vampire was not strictly a demon either, although its foul lusts seemed to have been born of hell. The creature was not intangible, for it had a body that was unlike that of a corpse, and it remained incorruptible and did not decompose in its sleeping place, for that place was sacred. Within the tainted earth was where the vampire found solace, and Van Helsing admitted that the grave was a place of death and of final dissolution, an enclosure that the living found filthy and contaminated, foul and disgusting and dark.

"_Memo: Check final arrangements with Harker before he leaves for Klausenburgh." _

A pang of guilt assailed him, and that was an unforgivable responsibility for his friend's death. Rationale told him that he should put these feelings aside. Both men had known the risks of the journey to Transylvania. Harker had youth on his side and in the guise of a new librarian his rouse should have gone undetected, but fate had intervened horribly. Both men had gone over their plans countless times before Harker had set out, yet only death and tragedy had come of it eventually. It made Van Helsing both sad and angry.

"_3: The crucifix, symbolising the power of good over evil. The power of the crucifix in these cases..."_

A knock sounded at the door, interrupting his reverie.

Van Helsing marked his page by placing the pencil lengthways along the spine and closed it, rose from his chair and placed the red bound journal on the desk beside the gramophone. He switched the machine off.

"Come in."

The door opened and Van Helsing's porter entered, dressed in his usual black pants and yellow shirt, his black bowtie and deep green apron completing the appearance of absolute efficiency.

"You rang, sir?"

"Oh, yes. I want this letter delivered first thing in the morning. Will you see to that?"

"Yes."

Van Helsing strode to his writing desk and picked up an envelope then fished a few coins out of his pocket and handed all to the valet. The letter was a brief note to Arthur and Mina Holmwood, asking their permission for him to deliver a few personal articles of Jonathan's to their residence. He walked back over to stand near his gramophone.

"Thank you," the Doctor said as he turned away and reached once more for the diary.

"Thank you, sir."

Yet there was something in the valet's tone that made Van Helsing hesitate and turn about to face the man. He was greeted by a look of confusion.

"Anything the matter?"

The man stammered, wanting to say something but not wanting to sound ridiculous or prying.

"What is it?" Van Helsing's face was blank.

"Well, l, yes sir, to tell you the truth, when I was outside I thought I heard you…" he paused briefly, "talking to someone."

"Well of course you did," replied Van Helsing. "I was talking to myself."

The porter returned a look of confusion and shrugged, unable to fathom at all what was happening. Perhaps his employer had lost some of his wits.

"You won't forget that letter, will you?" Van Helsing reminded the man, oblivious to his manservant's confusion.

"No, sir." He looked at the letter in his hands and nodded. "Yes." Bewildered he left the room.

The Doctor gave a little knowing smile. This was the way the world was headed, he thought, and how straight and neatly organised new technology was, pointing the way ahead even if it left the old ways in the dust of its path. The new way would probably never catch the likes of his porter in their grasp. Yet the new direction of the modern world must still leave room for the old, for the unknown and for the metaphysical. At some point the worlds must surely collide. Van Helsing nodded his head, as if to reaffirm and to justify his views, but this train of thought quickly faded because the business at hand was pressing and important. People's lives depended on the outcome of his research. Van Helsing opened the diary and switched the phonograph back on. His voice picked up from where it had left off:

_"The power of the crucifix in these cases is twofold. It protects the normal human being but reveals the vampire or victim of this vile contagion when in advanced stages."_

Van Helsing, deep in thought, rubbed his chin. This aversion to faith might be simply psychological, as he could think of no justification for the vampire fearing the cross. Perhaps it was the collision of light and dark, of good and evil locked in their eternal battle over the body and the mind that caused the vampire's metaphysical conflict. The crucifix itself was a symbol of torture. Maybe it was partly that too, that in the image of the cross the vampire should be reminded of its own unending agonies. Even so, the demarcation line between faith and defiance was at best very obscure. As Van Helsing read on, jotting down more notes in the margins, he began to affirm that the vampire was a complex creature and that he was now faced with a very nasty foe. At length he marked his page once again with his pencil and replaced it on the bench. He reset the gramophone stylus so that it would cut a new track pattern into the waxen cylinder, switched it on and picked up the mouthpiece. He began to speak into it quite clearly and seriously.

"Established that victims consciously detest being dominated by vampirism but are unable to relinquish the practice, similar to addiction to drugs. Ultimately, death results from loss of blood. But, unlike normal death, no peace manifests itself for they enter into the fearful state of the undead. Since the death of Jonathan Harker, Count Dracula, the propagator of this unspeakable evil, has disappeared. He must be found and destroyed."

In another part of Karlstadt the wind shivered in through Lucy's open window, scattering seared leaves in its wake. With the wind came the evil. It was splendid in its dark beauty. It had eyes that smouldered like coals. Something of the twilight and of the elusive and the unreal wrapped its form. In the muted light the dark swarmed with silver-grey and indigo, it moulded a chiselled shape from dreams and tormented lusts. Lucy watched it come to her taking on a more solid form as it approached, still unfinished, cryptic and mysterious. She wanted so much to soar to the heights of Heaven and then be plunged to the depths of Hell. Lucy would refuse neither option. Dark Angel, Seraph, this was illusion and it blurred the boundaries of what was real and what was not. She had not one thought of Jonathan left in her mind. Who was Jonathan Harker?

The name belonged to no person with whom she was familiar. Lucy dared not even blink in case the spell of binding was broken. It was a lure and it covered her. The darkness sang its music, plucked blackened harp strings and conjured songs of the flesh from the very depths of the Abyss. The light ebbed and dipped as a cloud obscured the moon and the coloured stars burst into golden cascade. A strange agony began to spread fire through her body. The pain started at her throat, at the wounds she had touched when she had taken off the cross and a wave of pleasure swept over her.

Lucy passed from apathy to glory in the space of a heartbeat and she let the darkness sing her down to even darker dreams.

Reel Six

Doctor Seward and Mina stepped from Lucy's bedroom and Mina closed the door. She was holding an envelope that had been delivered to her an hour before and she had read the letter it contained three times over. Confused and not wishing to explain its contents to the doctor she consigned the missal to a skirt pocket.

"She seems so much weaker, Doctor."

"It's a puzzling case, Mrs. Holmwood," Doctor Seward admitted. "The symptoms are those of anaemia, and I'm treating her for this. It can be a slow process, of course. But I had hoped for more encouraging signs by now."

They moved away from the bedroom door and the physician put down his bag. Mina gathered up his coat and began to help him into it. Just then the housemaid's child Tania ran into the room and came up to Mina.

"Please may I see Aunty Lucy?" she asked, her pretty heart-shaped face tortured with concern.

"Not today, Tania," Mina told her gently.

A look of confusion and hurt passed over Tania's innocent little brow. "Is she very ill?" It seemed a strange concept for Tania to understand, that Aunt Lucy could get sick so quickly and that she was not allowed to see her.

"I'm afraid so."

Tania shook her head in thought then cast her blue eyes up to Doctor Seward's kindly face.

"Do you know what's wrong with her?" she asked.

"Of course, I do."

"Then why don't you make her better?" Tania was awfully direct, her words were almost an accusation and they startled both Mina and Doctor Seward. How could Tania make them understand that all she wanted was for Lucy to get better so that the two of them could play once again in the garden? She loved it when they played hide and seek and when Lucy read to her and helped her learn her alphabet. It had been over a week since they had visited the rose arbour. Aunty Lucy had to get better; it didn't seem fair.

Doctor Seward could provide no answer that would make the child feel any more at ease. In fact he couldn't say for certain that Lucy would get better, she seemed to be slipping away and quite rapidly. He wanted to tell Mrs. Holmwood what he suspected but he didn't wish to frighten her; and he didn't know what to do. Inside he was very worried but he did not want to communicate this to Mina, she was staring at him in earnest and the child's interrogation had only made the severity of Lucy's situation worse. Gerda came to his rescue, bustling in and taking her daughter by the hand.

"Tania, how many times have I told you not to go bothering Mrs. Holmwood? I'm sorry ma'am."

"That's all right, Gerda."

Gerda too felt anxious about Lucy's health but she was embarrassed also for her child's directness. She had worked for the Holmwood's since her husband had died in a cart accident eight years before and Tania was a little baby. They had taken her in and Tania had grown up as one of the family. She had become very fond of Arthur Holmwood's sister Lucy and it distressed Gerda now to know that her daughter was fretting, but she must be made to understand that this was a very difficult time for Mr and Mrs Holmwood. Hugging Tania Gerda led her from the room.

Doctor Seward put on his gloves. "A child's logic can be most disconcerting."

"Yes." Mina replied, removing the letter from her pocket and slipping a finger along the edge of the envelope. She dared a quick glance at up at Doctor Seward but it seemed his thoughts were concerned wholly with Lucy's case. She wanted to tell him, to blurt out that she needed assurance, that this diagnosis wasn't enough, that there had to be a reason for this sudden and terrible change in Lucy's health. When at last he did look down a little spark flashed in his kindly eyes and he voiced that which Mina she could not say.

"Would you like a second opinion, Mrs. Holmwood?" The physician had shrewdly noted her concern and offered an almost psychic advocacy.

"Thank you, doctor," she told him, trying not to sound as if she did not trust his professional word, nor to be artlessly ungrateful. "I'll think about it."

They crossed to the main door and Mina opened it.

"Well, carry on with the medicine and diet I've prescribed, and plenty of fresh air."

"Yes, doctor, I will. Good day to you."

"Good day." Seward donned his hat and walked away.

When Doctor Seward had disappeared through the front gate Mina closed the door and opened the envelope again, re-reading the letter. She bit down on her lower lip and made up her mind what she must do.

Doctor Van Helsing was gathering the last of Jonathan's things together into his medical bag, he had decided to take them over to the Holmwood's; these things, especially the diary, might prove for them the key to their understanding of his death. Jonathan's own words would give voice to the many inexplicable things his own voice could not. They would understand Jonathan where they could not trust him. Van Helsing was putting the diary into his pocket when the knock sounded at the door. He snapped the bag closed just as Mina Holmwood entered.

"Mrs. Holmwood," he greeted her, half surprised, "how very good of you to come."

Mina appeared terribly worried, her beautiful face was drawn and her eyes were wide, making them impossibly bluer than they already were. Van Helsing removed his bag from the chair, brushed away the dust that wasn't there and motioned with his hand that Mrs. Holmwood should sit down.

"Thank you."

Separated from the exacting statutes of her home she appeared changed, vulnerable and alone. She was wearing a chequered woollen skirt and a fur; her hands were tucked snugly in a muff. She did not take them out. Van Helsing had noted that the weather had become remarkably cold within the last week and though it was spring it was as if winter had abruptly returned with a vengeance.

"You mentioned in your letter some things of Jonathan's," Mina began conversationally, but her tone belied her unease, that of course was not the reason why she had come.

"Yes," said Van Helsing, quickly concluding that her concerns were not those stated. "I have them ready. I would have brought them around myself but…" He lifted the bag to indicate that such had been his intention but found himself unable to finish the sentence. Mrs. Holmwood managed a faint smile to reassure him that she understood his reserve.

"I do understand," she said, pausing briefly and dropping her eyes, "but you must appreciate Mr. Holmwood was very upset."

"Of course," said Van Helsing, inwardly chastising himself for his earlier judgements. He lowered the bag. "I only wish I could have been more helpful."

Mina's emotions were starting to get the better of her and it had been difficult enough without the extra worry of Lucy's sudden loss of health.

"How did Miss Lucy take the news?" Van Helsing asked, knowing almost instinctively that Mina had not told her sister-in-law of Jonathan's fate.

"We haven't told her yet," she admitted quietly. "She's ill, very ill."

A visible look of consternation made itself evident in Van Helsing's face. He placed his bag on the table and returned to Mina.

"I'm sorry to hear that. May I ask what the matter with her is?"

At this Mina almost broke into tears. "It was all so sudden," she managed, struggling with her composure, "…happened about ten days ago. Our family doctor says its anaemia but I'm very unhappy about it."

She looked into Van Helsing's face and there was a plea in her eyes that no man could have refused. She had heard that Van Helsing was a Blood Specialist and there presented an irrefutable connection. She knew instinctively the very moment that she had received his letter that here was someone who seemed peculiar but also someone who might understand. Van Helsing seemed confidant and perhaps he alone held the solution, he might be her only chance of saving Lucy. Doctor Seward had not announced the severity of Lucy's imminent danger of dying, but Mina did not have to be told. Van Helsing turned away abruptly and Mina thought she had implied something terrible about Doctor Seward.

"Oh, I've nothing against Doctor Seward, please don't think that, but, well, he did say I could have another opinion."

Van Helsing nodded his understanding but made it quite evident that none of that was important right now.

"I'd like to see her at once."

Mina stood up and her voice was suddenly urgent. "Oh, I'd be so grateful."

"If you'll excuse me…" Van Helsing turned and proceeded to gather his things together, Mina watching him with eyes that pleaded in fear. That she had done the right thing in coming to Van Helsing gave her a short moment of relief. If anyone could help Lucy she knew it was this man.

Lucy already looked like a corpse. Her face had faded to the pastel shade of vaguely pink-tinged chalk, almost indefinable from the bed linen upon which her auburn hair flowed. Her cheeks had sunken in to the point where the bones were prominent and her blue eyes had lost their sparkle; those pink lips had lost the colour of the camellia that had bloomed down by the arbour.

Mina approached the bed. "Lucy," she said gently and although it was painful to look upon Lucy in this condition, to see this ghastly caricature of the lovely young woman Lucy had been, Mina took her hand and stroked it. That hand was so cold. "I've someone to see you… Doctor Van Helsing. He's a friend of Jonathan's." Mina let go of Lucy's hand and replaced it on the quilt.

Mina noticed that for some odd reason Lucy did not look upon the Doctor, but rather her gaze deliberately avoided his face and instead glanced beyond him. It was as if he didn't exist, or if she did not want him to exist.

"Miss Lucy," said Van Helsing, coming up to her bedside and sitting close. He reached out and picked up the very same hand Mina had held, and he too noted how remarkably cold it was. He felt for a pulse. It was difficult to find but it was there, his fingertip at last finding the faint vacillations of Lucy's heartbeat. The dull pumping of her blood was but a weak ripple under her skin. As he did this, Doctor Van Helsing glanced about the room. In a vase on a bedside table were a handful of daffodils, all of their yellow chalices were drooping and their green stems were beginning to bend.

"What lovely flowers," Van Helsing remarked softly, yet Lucy said nothing. Mina looked to the flowers and could not believe that Gerda had only filled the vase fresh that very morning. Lucy smiled at Mina and there was something disturbing in that smile, a smile that knew a secret knowledge that could not be shared. Uncomfortably Mrs. Holmwood went to stand by the footboard and curled her fingers tightly about its carved edge. There seemed to be something unsettling about Lucy other than the fact that she resembled death warmed up, it was something in that haunting, chilling smile.

Still Lucy refused to look at Van Helsing.

Mina turned and was about to address Van Helsing when Lucy spoke.

"Jonathan's dead, isn't he?" Her statement was so abrupt it took both Mina and Van Helsing by surprise. Mina could not respond, not even a shrug of the shoulders, her voice had frozen in her throat. Van Helsing came to her rescue and nodded the affirmative.

"I'm sorry," he apologised but Lucy dismissed him with a flicker of her frosty eyes.

"Did Arthur tell you?" Mina managed to respond.

"Nobody told me," Lucy returned coldly, it was hardly Lucy's sweet voice at all. "I just knew. Is that why Doctor Helsing is here?"

At this point she deigned turn her glacial stare upon Van Helsing. An invisible shock of evil passed through his body and he knew what he was going to find even before he went looking for it.

"Partly," he began, never once losing his composure.

Mina took her slim fingers from the foot-rail and her hands began to clench together.

"Doctor Van Helsing is a Specialist," she told Lucy, stammering slightly, her voice quavering as it teetered on the brink of weeping. "He's come to help you."

The auburn haired woman's stare raked over Van Helsing. There was anger in her face and wariness, as if she clandestinely knew that this was more than just a friendly consultation. She knew something was not quite right and of all things she did not want this man's 'help'.

"Jonathan has told me so many things about you," Lucy said to Van Helsing, drawing her lips up into a deceptive smile.

"Nice things I hope," Van Helsing smiled back.

"Very nice," the young woman lied as the Doctor examined her right eye and tilted her head so that he could see her neck. "Now let's see." He repeated these same actions to the left of her face. "Ummm... now here," he muttered softly pushing away the flow of red hair to expose the throat. He saw then the twin scars, the livid kiss of the vampire, the punctures from which it had fed its lust and tasted the blood of the living. The holes were slightly ragged and the blood was scabbed about the rims. The white skin was bruised from the suction of demonic lips. Van Helsing was inwardly horrified. He knew for certain now what he had only suspected when Mrs Holmwood had told him that Lucy was ill- Dracula had risen from the grave to make Lucy his new bride. He cast his mind back to the moment he had found the remnants of Lucy's torn photograph in what had been Jonathan's bedroom in Dracula's castle. He should have realised then but he had been a fool.

Van Helsing straightened Lucy's head upon her pillow and felt for her temperature by placing his hand on her forehead. Still no change, she remained frightfully cold.

"Now don't you worry," he told her even though he knew she did not believe him, "we shall soon have you well again."

"Goodbye, Doctor," Lucy said as he stood up and it was as if she were imparting a shared secret to which he alone knew the answer but could do nothing about the impending consequences.

There was a brief silence, one that made Mina all the more anxious. Van Helsing clutched both of Lucy's hands and gently squeezed them.

"I'm sorry you had a wasted journey," Lucy said to Van Helsing as he let go of her hands and joined Mina at the end of the bed. A little question furrowed Van Helsing's forehead. "About Jonathan, I mean."

"It wasn't wasted, I promise you," Van Helsing replied, the frown vanishing. "Good day Miss Lucy."

As the Doctor and Mina left the room whispering and the door shut fast, a vehement cloud of suppressed fury blanched Lucy's chalky face and she spat upon the floor and glared into nothingness.

Outside and out of earshot Mina was the first to speak.

"How could she have known about Jonathan's death?"

"A premonition," said Van Helsing. "It's not uncommon." His voice was calm but somehow his words were unconvincing. Mina felt that the Doctor suspected there was more to Lucy's condition but could not commit his thoughts to words. Not just yet.

"She took it so calmly," she said, her blue eyes questioning Van Helsing. "It worries me."

Doctor Van Helsing placed a temperate hand upon Mina's shoulder and led her to the foyer.

"I'm afraid there are more urgent things to worry about. Those marks on her neck, when did they first appear?"

"Well, I noticed them first shortly after she became ill," Mina told him, reflecting hesitantly, trying to fix in her head the exact day. "I asked her about them, and she said that she thought she'd been stung. It is quite possible, of course. Dr. Seward said she must have plenty of fresh air. The windows were open all the time."

Van Helsing's tone suddenly became very grim and serious and his expression frightened her. "Between the hours of sunset and sunrise, all the windows in her room, with the possible exception of a small fanlight for ventilation, must be kept shut."

"Oh, but Dr. Seward said..."

The Doctor interrupted her abruptly, cutting off her words. "Mrs. Holmwood, you called me in for a second opinion. If I am to help your sister-in-law, there are certain things you must do to help me however unorthodox they may appear."

Mina was confused and did not know what to think. Perhaps she had made a mistake coming to Doctor Van Helsing after all; he was now acting so differently it was difficult to believe it was the same man whose words she had defended in her parlour.

"Yes, I know, but..."

Van Helsing moved in very close, so close that his words blew his breath upon her face. "If you love Miss Lucy, be guided by me, I beg you."

"I'll do anything to make her well again."

Van Helsing reached for his coat and began to put it on. "You must get some garlic flowers, as many as you can. Place them by her windows and her door and by her bedside. They may be taken out during the day but, under no circumstances, even if the patient implores you, must they be removed at night."

Mina looked incredulous, was he talking witchcraft? Where was the man of science of whom she had asked for help, replaced by a fanatic who now suggested remedies that only a peasant woman might heed? She began to object but the words died on her tongue.

"I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how important it is that you obey my instructions. Do exactly as I say… " Van Helsing paused as if to emphasise his instructions, "and we may be able to save her." He lifted a hand and extended the index finger in front of Mina's face. "If you don't, she will die."

Horror froze Mina and she could not speak.

"I'll be here in the morning," Van Helsing told her, his voice falsely reassuring. Reaching up he touched her arm tenderly. Mina barely nodded; no words would come to her tongue now, it had frozen in fear. With that Van Helsing left and Mina closed the door and finally wept.

Reel Seven

Lucy writhed in her bed, in a wasting fever and holding in muted screams of torment as if she were suppressing a ghastly personal bedlam.

"_Why must I suffer this_ _agony?"_ Lucy's mind screamed as the nightmare that was craving burned her within and seared her without. Her whole body shook and a damp sweat broke upon her brow. Her skin was ashen and clammy to the touch. Hell-fire roared through her veins like magma erupting from the caldera of a volcano. This nightmare of anticipation plunged life and living into a state of damnation. The wilted daffodils in the bedside vase were now gone, replaced by odious smelling garlic flowers and Lucy found the stench unbearable. It choked up her sense of smell and closed off her throat to the point where she could hardly breathe. She knew instinctively that Doctor Helsing had had something to do with their placement in her bedchamber. How she despised him for this cruel act. The smell was almost intolerable. It created an invisible barrier that prevented the dark from coming to her and if she had not been so weak and if they did not repel her so she would have removed them herself. It was suffocating, as if a pungent mask had been pressed against her nostrils and mouth. The horror of it squeezed at her lungs till they fought for air in a sick and unending wave of nausea. Lucy wanted to die rather than to suffer this any longer, to bleed for her demon lover so long as the cloying stench could be cleared and he could come again. She could bear it no more, the harrowing putridity and the thick malodorous waft that constricted her airways; that barred his entrance to her room. That drove her to the brink of insanity.

Lucy sat bolt upright in her bed; the sheets were moist from perspiration. Throwing the bedding off, disgusted at their sticky heaviness and gasping and fighting as if with some invisible enemy, she lashed out and threw the vase on the dresser to the floor. There it smashed into jagged shards and scattered the garlic stems onto the carpet. The effort made her collapse back onto the bed. In her ear she could hear the lure being sung, the sensual and sweet calling that pulled at her heart, relentless and demanding. Yet there could be no ingress for the darkness and so the weak and tortured beauty moaned and clutched at the heart beating fiercely within her breast.

Gerda heard the crash and was soon in Lucy's bedroom.

"Heavens, child!" she exclaimed. "What is it?"

"Oh Gerda, these flowers," Lucy gasped, "I can't stand them!" Violently her bosom was heaving and her breathlessness was so pronounced that Gerda herself began trembling in fear. The housemaid ran to Lucy's bedside, sidestepping the broken china and the puddle of spilled water.

"They do smell so, Miss, but Mrs. Holmwood said that…"

Lucy clutched at Gerda's hand. "I don't care what she said," spitting out the words between clenched teeth, "please take them away. Please!" Her eyes were staring white and indigo, the iris of each having been squeezed into a pinpoint of black nothing. Lucy looked terrible and her touch was chill and lingering. A battle between conscience and responsibility erupted inside Gerda's head, she did not want to go against Mrs. Holmwood's orders but Lucy was so distressed that she had to decide quickly what she should do. The poor thing could hardly breathe. Lucy perceived Gerda's moment of indecision and managed to sit up again, taking both the woman's hands in her clasp, imploring her with wild eyes.

"Well…" Gerda was unsure for it meant trouble either way, for she did not want to hurt anyone, but what did you do when someone you loved had you trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea?

"Please, Gerda," Lucy begged. "They stifle me."

"All right, Miss. I'll take them out." There was nothing else for it. If it might help the girl breathe and to sleep then the awful smelling flowers had to go.

Gerda turned away to begin cleaning up the shattered vase.

"And the windows. You'll open the windows?"

"Yes, Miss Lucy, if that's what you want."

Lucy collapsed back upon her pillow and began shivering. Frightened almost to the raw edge of her wits Gerda pulled up the coverlet and made Lucy as comfortable as she could. Hesitantly the housekeeper stepped away from the bed, turning toward the French doors, that gaping portal to the night world, its glass shimmering with faint shards of chipped moonlight. Gerda stooped down and picked up the two large vases that blocked the entrance and put them to one side. Next she unbound the sprig of garlic blossoms tied about the door handle and reaching out she gently pushed at the panels and they flew wide. Lucy gave an audible sigh and Gerda crossed herself and whispered a silent prayer. A chill wind blew in to caress both women.

Lucy smiled and there was something unmistakably evil in that slight lifting of the corners of her lips. She could see them outside the window, as easily as a cat sees in the dark, the glittering shower of motes that swirled amid the leaves and pressed against the glass but could not get in. Lucy watched on, wanting the terrible barrier to be removed utterly so that the putrid stench of the garlic would be dissipated.

"I'll come back for the rest." Gerda told the young woman, her breath threading into mist in the air. For a second she regretted having conceded to Miss Lucy's wishes. It was so cold. Perhaps she could return later and close the doors. Gerda left the room with the vases of garlic sprays, and when she was gone Lucy turned her gaze to the scattering of leaves swirling outside the door and she gasped with anticipation as the moon blossomed like a great white flower, sterling and lambent from a veil of Cimmerian haze.

The moon alone bore witness, watching with her beaming silver eye from the edge of eternity. Under the sterling luminance of her celestial lamp the nothingness emerged and slithered over the lawn and pooled momentarily before the garden wall. The darkness shifted, moved by rapid degrees, deliberate, passing over the tangled screen of climbing roses. The stems quivered and a century of fanged interlacing knots unravelled like thread, coming undone in the shadows of the night. In the polished pewter beams of the moon the pink buds of the roses atrophied and changed to rot upon their stems, the ivy let loose its stranglehold over the mortars and fell withered and lifeless. The red bricks were stripped naked, laid bare. High up in the eaves the swallows and the doves fell like stones to the ground below with spread wing and closed eye. No crickets made sound, no dog howled. In the surreal half-light the nothingness devoured the very atmosphere about it, staining the now exposed bricks an atrementous pitch and seeming to expand, growing bigger as it crawled, folding black velvet in upon itself and by turns to ripple and unfurl though it sustained no form, no reality. Soon its girth enveloped the garden and wall and struck upon the moonlit façade of the house. Spreading over the entire side of the building it undulated and heaved, as if breathing fuliginous air, and perhaps its shape was suggestive of giant wings; perhaps it was not, yet the moon glimpsed this but fleetingly in her great argent eye.

The roses died in a tortured frenzy, their petals discolouring, bled white, their leaves and prickly stems descending into diseased rust. From a frenzied delirium the nothingness remade itself in their ashes. It was composed of lurid purple dusks, deeper than the night and it shone as nothing dark can shine and it sang such a lovely aria, the sinuous fragment of a melody played by Seraphim in the furthermost corners of the soul. Lucy waited breathlessly in her bed, the music filling her mind, her heart pounding. She reached up a finger and gently touched the scars on her slender throat, twin buds of pink that had abruptly split open and begun to bleed; a thin ribbon of scarlet trickled down and stained the niveous linen of her pillow. Lucy sighed and groaned, finding herself immobile, rigid like a corpse, helpless, anticipating. It was out there, Lucy knew this truth, and soon it would be in here, with her- all the glorious promises that death could bring, for she knew that she could not survive this love. How Lucy's heart pounded, beat as a timpani beats, its tempo rising, rising, heralding the inevitable, her surrender, her final and ultimate conjoining with mad passion. At length it came, the blackness. Thief it was, stealing into Lucy's sleepless nightmare existence, pledging joys that could not be finite, declaring its fervid vows, empty vows that she knew must only be broken. The darkness hovered just outside the diamond-paned glass, luminary in its unholy visitation, invincible in its beauty. It glittered with sinew and muscle and its bejewelled panoply of star-scattered wings dissolved. It glittered with sinew and muscle and its spread of shaded wings melted. It altered and changed. Occluded light shone behind translucent eyelids. The demon danced in the shadows, the nightmare made Elysian and Lucy could hear the voluptuary thrumming of the blood in her veins. She seemed fascinated, her body invaded by a wonderful rush of glorious anticipation, the music flowing from the ether, the moon throwing silver fire on the floor.

A gust of wind blew in through the French doors, scattering a maelstrom of dead leaves before it, the billowing folds of some dark and wondrous form tumbling over the falls of forever. The woman moaned and threw her head to the side. She wanted to see, wanted her vision to be filled with all that was glory, yet she dared not look and instead cast her gaze aside. Gliding to the bed the night made incarnate stood above her, a writhing pillar of shadow and haze, pulsing with violet and indigo, ruby and nacre. Closer still it came, a ceaselessly spinning whorl with strobing wings, a beautifully hideous angel of death. Lucy closed her eyes, breathless. Weak, she felt, weak in the presence of such intense beauty. Closer yet it slid, black smoke on black ice, a maelstrom of whirling dark pleasures stitched together from broken stars and ultimate joys. She did not look, could not look, but instead clutched tightly at the coverlet. This was the moment of truth, the moment when all else that should happen would count as nothing, all would be as dust, all and everything that composed the world of the flesh inherent in one final embrace, one penultimate kiss. The very planet must stop in its revolutions and the sun must go out forever.

Lucy expected the kiss to happen immediately but it did not, instead the darkness touched its cold lips to her cheek and its chill hand to her breast. A thrill of tormented ecstasy sparked through every nerve, instantly her nipple contracted and the shadow hand pushed up under her nightdress and made a slow circular motion, cupping and gently squeezing, tracing a line of icy burning coals over her belly, going lower, lower. There was a perverse promise in the things it sang to her ear, a susurrant melody of the grave, but Lucy did not care, this embrace was too exquisite, a rapture, an enchantment. A seduction in diseased poetry. She groaned, helpless in its guile, and twisted her face away, her eyes clenched shut so tightly that she could see only darkness splashed through with throbbing stars, she convulsed. Her ivory and splendid throat gleamed in the moonlight and the entity made no sound, its presence mute, no words of encouragement passed between its lips as they descended. The thing made no false promises of eternal and enduring love, and with her heart upon the brink of bursting, it finally kissed Lucy with velvet lips. It was a fervid kiss, a delicious, torturous raking as of thorns in her flesh. Burning, throbbing. An orgasm of blood.

Stiffening and shuddering Lucy entwined her arms about the darkness and the darkness fastened itself like a leech to her throat and the moon went out like a snuffed candle and saw no more.

Reel Eight

In the morning Lucy was dead. Her head lay straight, her cascade of russet hair flowing over her neck and over her pillow, concealing the bites on her throat and the bloodstain on the linen. In the morning light her skin appeared translucent, the veins beneath the surface quite visible but pale and collapsed. Her face was a frightful mockery of the pretty girl she had once been.

"There was nothing I could do to save her," Doctor Seward said to the Holmwood's as he pulled the sheet up over the dead girl's face. His apology seemed pointless and he felt completely ineffectual. Arthur held Mina close and Mina was holding in her tears, she did not want to break down, not yet, she knew that would come at the funeral. She couldn't understand the reasons for Lucy's death especially as she had followed Doctor Van Helsing's instructions to the letter. Could Van Helsing have been wrong with his directives? She felt guilty having conceded to what could only be described as sorcery, and she could never admit this part of her foolishness to Arthur.

There came a knock at the bedroom door and Gerda emerged from behind the screen that had been put up to shield any view of the deceased should the door be opened. Their main concern was for little Tania, she had not been told and it would damage her irrevocably should she catch a glimpse of Lucy under a shroud and dead. Gerda carried a silver platter and passed it to Arthur. From it he picked up a card. She did not need to announce Doctor Van Helsing; he simply walked in, threw both the Holmwood's a cursory glance and walked quickly over to Lucy's deathbed, gently pushing Doctor Seward aside. He folded the sheet back and took a deep breath, then gently replaced it.

"Dr. Van..." began Seward, but Van Helsing silenced him with a brisk wave of his hand. He approached Arthur and Mina and as he did so Gerda cast her eyes to the floor.

"Mrs. Holmwood, did you do as I told you?" Van Helsing's voice had an insistent edge.

"She did," Arthur interjected coldly, "and you have seen the result." Arthur was angry and made a motion with his eyes to the body of his sister on the bed, as if to imply Van Helsing's responsibility for the terrible death.

"But Arthur… " Mina began, cut off mid-sentence as Gerda interrupted.

"Please, sir. Excuse me, sir," she began sobbing. "It was all my fault. She could not breathe. She looked so ill. She begged me to open the windows and throw away all the plants. Oh, I know you told me not to, Ma'am, but I… "

"Gerda," Van Helsing said gravely, "what time was this?"

"It was about midnight. I heard a noise and I… "

The woman began to wipe away her tears with her apron.

"All right," Arthur stopped the interrogation, excusing Gerda. "You may go now."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Oh, I am so sorry, sir."

Van Helsing watched Gerda leave the room.

"Whatever happened," stated Arthur to Van Helsing, lowly, but accusingly, "all I know is that you have caused us nothing but grief. First Jonathan, and now Lucy. Whoever you are and whatever your motives, please go and leave us in peace."

Arthur turned away from Van Helsing and refused to speak another word. He held his wife closely but she could not stem the flow of tears.

"Mr. Holmwood," said Van Helsing, regardless of his dismissal, "when I told you about Jonathan, I thought it best for your peace of mind to spare you the details of the dreadful circumstances in which he died. But the tragic death of your sister is so closely linked with Jonathan's that I think you should now know the truth."

The Doctor reached inside his coat pocket and withdrew a red leather-bound journal.

"I can't expect you to believe me, but you will, I know, believe Jonathan. Here are his last words… his diary."

Arthur turned his face back to Van Helsing's.

"When you have read it," said Van Helsing gravely, "you will understand."

He set the diary upon a table, nodded to the Holmwood's and left.

There was black everywhere, black suits, black gowns, black plumes, black horses and a black hearse. The hearse drove Lucy's bloodless remains to the cemetery on a day blacker than midnight could ever have been even though the sky was cerulean. From a church nearby a bell was tolling and the sable horses moved at such a sluggish pace that every clop of their hooves was an agony to the ear.

Arthur had let the arrangements to J. Marx and Sons; the 'sons' had come and taken Lucy away.

"J Marx, Cabinetmaker and Undertaker," was etched in white painted letters on a black sign hanging above the eave from brass hooks. It swung gently above in a shiver of chill wind. Arthur had come alone for Mina was too upset. He did not want to go in but he knew he had to. He cast a quick look about and heard the muted draw of a saw and the dulled tapping of a hammer driving nails into timber. He heard horses too, so the stables must be somewhere around the back. None of these noises were intrusive though, but the air was crisp, very crisp and Arthur pulled the neck of his coat in tighter. The house stood off to the right at the end of Frederickstrasse, it was hemmed in by rows of manicured oleander and magnolia and they in turn, like troops in the forefront, were offset by rows of asphodels. The scents were sweet and quite pleasing, but still connected to death and decay. The fact of this was made even more profound by the loss of his sweet sister who must now share all of her future conversations with the worms. A stooped old gardener was diligently pulling up weeds, his rake and wheel barrow nearby.

Arthur went up to the door and pulled the bell chain. Upon meeting Mr. Marx the man was not what Arthur had expected of an undertaker. Rather than being the stereotypical thin and gaunt severity in black, the man was a portly, vague sort of fellow. This did not sit too well with Arthur at all because it challenged the conformity of his world. But Marx it was said knew his business well, better than any in Karlstadt, so it was Marx who was to take care of Lucy. Mr. Marx shook Holmwood's hand.

"Come in, come in my good man…"

"Thank you," stated Arthur; he could smell the odour of pine and cedar and strangely enough, it was not unpleasant. The fat man escorted Arthur to a seat; an over-buttoned leather and rosewood monstrosity that had not a shred of comfort in it, but that seemed befitting the severity of the circumstances, and Arthur wanted the arrangements dealt with quickly. A gilded clock ticked away quietly on the mantle above a fireplace. Arthur was thankful for the warmth that radiated into the room.

It has been terribly cold of late, don't you think?" Marx asked of Arthur. "Not very usual for this time of year."

"No, no it hasn't been usual" Arthur responded, but now was not the time for small talk about the climate. "Mr. Marx, when can the funeral take place?"

"Why, tomorrow, if that's all right with you sir. Yes tomorrow. Certainly tomorrow." Almost as an afterthought Marx added: "Though it could rain you know?" The muttered sentence was rather off-putting and Arthur thought Marx seemed to be losing himself in his distracted train and dull observations about the weather.

"That would be the best… "

"Gets terrible in the rain," the Undertaker rambled on, "always wind up with a cold… "

"Well," interrupted Holmwood, "hopefully it won't rain." The two men looked at each other for a silent moment, Arthur not sure about this peculiar mortician who was smiling back at him, lost somewhere other than the room in which they sat.

"Mr. Marx," said Arthur at length, "I should like my sister interred in our family vault."

Abruptly Marx came back to the business at hand.

"Oh, a family vault. Would you know the lot number at all, by chance Mr…?"

Had he forgotten Arthur's name already? How was he going to remember to bury his beloved sister?

"Holmwood," Arthur replied curtly, putting a serious weight on the sound of his own name. Marx was now jotting little notes down in a leather-bound book.

"Had she, your dear sister, been ill for long sir?"

"No, not long at all. She died quite suddenly. It has been a terrible blow to everyone."

"I am sorry to hear that sir."

Arthur did not reply but rather looked down for a moment as if in deep thought. He couldn't understand Lucy's death anymore than he could understand what had been written in Jonathan's diary. No, it all must be a horrible jest; there could be no truth to any of it because it made no sense. How did one believe such insane ramblings?

"Would you like to see her, sir?" Marx put down his nib and Arthur returned instantly to the moment.

"Pardon?" returned Holmwood, broken out of his reverie and almost shocked at the suggestion. He had seen Lucy on her deathbed, seen the sheet go over her face, yet that diary suggested something infinitely more horrible than death. No, he really didn't want to behold that pale, emaciated visage again, did not want to search the ghastly imaginings of Jonathan's diary and find them manifest in the flesh- the dead flesh!

"You can say a private goodbye to her. Come, I'll take you to her."

Before Holmwood could object further Marx had taken his elbow and gently helped him from the big rosewood chair.

"I… I'm not sure… " Arthur protested, feebly drawing back, his words drying up in his throat. The aloof and austere Arthur Holmwood of the everyday world had suddenly deserted and left him powerless.

"It's all right Mr. Holmwood," Marx assured, increasing the pressure on Arthur's arm and almost pulling him from the seat, "everything is all right."

The Undertaker led him through a door and down a passage to where the sacred heart of Jesus bled in the leaded glass of a double door.

They came into a small chapel. A row of twelve short pews flanked either side, a narrow aisle bisecting them, and at the end of this was a raised dais screened off by red velvet drapes. Above the pall light streamed in livid colours through the open wounds of a stained glass Jesus, done in the same style as the heart in the chapel door. The sun washed through crimsons and yellows and greens, blood dripped from a crown of glass hawthorn.

"I'll leave you for a little while then," said Marx, and he disappeared very quickly for such a large man.

Eerily the curtains slid back to reveal a casket raised up on a marble catafalque, the top half of the split lid was held open by a gleaming brass pin. From some hidden recess the low sound of atonal organ music was filtering through the walls. At the coffin's head a tree of candles lent a suffused light to the scene; a cross of polished brass, studded with red garnets, was placed decoratively at the foot end reflecting back splashes of carmine that fell across Lucy's lips and cheeks giving her features a warm hue. Lucy lay so still in her coffin and Arthur held back, he was on the threshold of something he did not really want to do. The life force had gone and Lucy now looked so unlike the sister he had loved, inert and pale despite the faint tinctures cast by the surreal candlelight. He was glad Mina was not here with him, how it would have upset her. No, he did not want to approach further, yet something compelled him to do so, to step up to the coffin and look upon her fully. Marx had done a fine job. Lucy lay serene in her Cherrywood box, reclined in a tide of tulle and oyster coloured satin, her head at rest on a blue velvet pillow, her hands clasped together, so calm; so incredibly calm. Her crown of thick auburn hair flowed over the pillow and spilled among golden tassels. By some weird deception of the senses she neither appeared to be deceased or sleeping but to exist somewhere in between this world and the next, dreaming.

Arthur felt his arm rising involuntarily, stretching out and reaching within the coffin. He could not stop himself from touching her, his fingers caressing her slim white hand. The flesh was cold, very cold but it was supple, her fingertips were painted a pale shade of rose, Marx had lightly coloured her lips. Mr Marx had also placed a lily with a yellow ribbon by her heart, but the flower had turned limp, its fleshy petals seared and brown already curling up in termination. It spoiled the care with which Marx prided his work. Arthur looked at Lucy's face and as he looked a slight sweat broke out on his brow and his palms began to feel clammy. This was once a vibrant, pretty young woman with eyes like the colour of the sky and lips like a valentine. For one dreadful second Arthur thought those lips smiled up at him and he saw the tips of what could only have been impossibly long incisors. A sudden chill leapt up Arthur's arm and he imagined for a moment that her eyes were open and that she was staring at him. He let go of Lucy's hand and it fell across her breast, the lily crumbled into ash. A horrible sensation passed through him and he stepped back, his thoughts reeling. The world had altered and two people close to him had perished. He suspected that Van Helsing understood what he could not and now he could feel an alien rush of fear crawling over his skin. Abruptly the organ music ceased, and shaken and unnerved he found that he could not stay another moment. It had been a mistake to look upon Lucy, a terrible mistake. He should never have come.

Arthur left promptly without saying goodbye to Mr. Marx and once outside in the street took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. He had experienced a taste of evil and his soul had shrieked. Something was terribly wrong and he felt it, knew it, yet what could he do?

The following day the black hearse had taken Lucy's coffin to the graveyard and she was interred in a stone crypt in the Holmwood family vault. Mina and Gerda had wept much that day and long into the night till exhausted they slept and knew both troubled dreams. In her own cot little Tania could not sleep, but wondered why there were so many tears. She wanted to see Lucy but for some reason was not allowed. Eventually she too slept but in the morning nothing seemed changed for the better, everyone was terribly unhappy. She asked Mina if she could see Aunt Lucy and Mina told her that Lucy had had to go away.

"To get better?" Tania had asked back, and Mina had hugged her so tight it hurt, but she didn't answer Tania's question.

Mina sat in mourning black, busy with her needlepoint; it took her mind away from the loss of Lucy and Jonathan and helped her to concentrate less on the confusion and horror of the last three days. She was sewing the pink bloom of a camellia, her thread marking time as it slid through the fabric. On a deeper level though her mind was troubled, she felt somehow responsible for Lucy's death even though she knew that this was not the truth, and Dr. Van Helsing had been so abrupt and Arthur so angry that the once cosy world in which they had all lived seemed to be breaking apart. She rested the sewing frame on her knee and paused momentarily, looking up at her husband.

Arthur stood by the window looking out into the night, sipping a cup of tea. It had been difficult for him to grasp all the things written in the scarlet-bound diary he had been given by Van Helsing. Truly, he had to confess to himself that it was all an impossible truth or the worst of nightmares. But he had to believe it. Two of the people in his life were now dead because of the madness within its pages and how could he shake off the premonition of horror he had experienced at J. Marx's? Arthur did not want Mina to read Jonathan's diary, its record of insanity could only prove damaging so he had locked it away in a drawer in his desk. He could only imagine the horrors with which it would have filled her mind.

A thin mist was beginning to creep along the ground in the street outside when he saw the ghost of a policeman pass through and solidify just inside the garden gate. The veil of fog parted and the policeman's figure took on a clearer tenuity, his uniform just that one shade lighter than the backdrop of the dark. The streetlamp glinted off his polished brass buttons. Arthur caught a glimpse of someone with the constable, someone small but he wasn't sure. He walked away from the glass and up to where Mina was sitting, put down his cup and kissed his wife. She gave a wan smile as Gerda came into the room.

"What is it, Gerda?" Arthur asked.

"It's a policeman, sir. He's got Tania with him." Gerda's face was streaked with concern, she had put her child to bed over an hour ago; it was unlike Tania to walk in her sleep, and out in the chill night alone- Gerda was shocked. Perhaps the child was fretting over not being able to see Miss Lucy.

"Tania?" Mrs. Holmwood's countenance changed to one of concern. It was late, what would an eight-year-old child be doing with a Policeman at this hour of the night? Gerda, wringing her hands nervously had no explanation to offer.

"Show him in, Gerda." Arthur too was concerned and he gave Mina a questioning look.

"Very good, Sir."

A big, burly policeman came into the room holding Tania's little hand. He took off his cap. "Good evening Ma'am," he bowed his head to Mina. "Good evening Sir," he saluted Arthur.

"Well," asked Arthur, "what is it officer?"

"I found this little girl here." He looked down at Tania.

Gerda stood behind her child and looked at the Policeman, her eyes filled with unease for she was at a loss as was everyone as to why Tania should be out in the night.

"She was very distressed indeed," continued the Constable. "Tell them what you told me."

Tania broke away from his hand and pushed her face into her mother's skirts. "I don't want to." She started to cry. Mina put down her needlepoint, stood up and walked over to kneel before the child.

"Oh, Tania, there's no need to be frightened. Now come on over here, sit with me and tell me all about it." Mina took Tania's little hand and led her back to the sofa. Tania sat down on Mina's knee. "Now you don't want Mr. Holmwood to think you're a cry-baby, do you? You're a big girl now." A tear rolled down Tania's cheek. "Now, come on, tell me what happened."

All Tania could do, was continue to cry. Mina lifted Tania's face by propping her finger under the little girl's chin. Their eyes met and Mina dried Tania's tears.

"Well, I was out by myself," Tania began brokenly, "and she came up to me, and she said, _"Hello, Tania, shall we go for a little walk?"_ And I said, _"Yes,"_ and we went for a walk. And then someone came along and she ran away and left me, and I was alone."

Tania buried her head in Mina's shoulder and began to sob again. Gerda shrugged and shook her head in confusion.

"Who was she?" asked Mina, stroking the child's hair. "Who did you see?"

Tania was crying and wiping at her tears and trying to speak all at the same time. Gerda watched on anguished and helpless.

"Come on, tell me. Who was she?"

"Aunt Lucy!" Tania managed to say with her trembling voice and a shudder of horror touched Arthur's soul and pulled an audible gasp from Mina's lips. Thereupon a deathly silence hung an unanswerable question in the air.

Arthur left soon after the policeman. If what Jonathan had written in his diary could be given any credence at all then he would know the truth tonight and his suspicions would be confirmed. He had felt a touch of evil at the funeral home, a whisper of something nameless in his ear, a shiver that had crawled over his skin and left an indelible mark. He had to know, to see with his own two eyes if there was any actuality to what he had always considered to be fairy tales. Here before him now was opening up a world of horrors that he could never have thought possible, not in the world he knew. Had he lived in ignorance and this curse been a dream his staid world could have gone on unchanged forever, but his sister had died, or worse, become something even more unspeakable. He had gone to the study and taken Jonathan's diary from his desk drawer and put it into his coat pocket and when Mina had retired for the evening he had set out to discover for himself that which he did not want to believe.

A flickering lamp led him to the cemetery; ground mists swirled about his feet as he moved through the graves. The dead lay in eternal slumbers on either side of his path, stretched out in rows of ivy-strangled neglect. Locating Lucy's tomb was not so difficult in the dark for a sterling moon lit the way with silver fire. Soon he came upon the Holmwood crypt and hesitantly, with his free hand he pushed the door inward. Holding the lamp high lamp over his head he squinted into the gloom, the flame dancing with the movement. A twisted shadow loomed up the cold stone wall and for a second his heart stopped beating. With a sigh of relief Arthur realised it was his own shade and quickly recovered from his fear. At all costs he must keep his nerve. Floral offerings lay propped about the walls and on the ground were withering sprays and wreaths whose once vibrant colours had now all drained to a sickly brown. Tentatively he stepped up to the stone sarcophagus. The heavy lid no longer covered the sepulchre but lay propped against the side of the tomb. It was solid stone and it was beyond belief that any one person could have the strength to move it, for four men had struggled to seal it into place after the interment. Unwillingly he lowered his lamp and looked in. Although the colour drained from his face he had half-hoped not to find the rock-hewn box empty. All that it contained was a scattering of earth and the blue and gold pillow from the funeral home, indented with an impression left by Lucy's head. Arthur wanted to believe something other than the terrible truth, he wanted to believe that her body had been stolen by grave robbers- but this! Anything but this! It was unthinkable.

Quietly he stepped back and sat down outside Lucy's crypt and prayed while he waited.

Tania had woken to the wind whispering her name, calling just as it had called earlier that evening for her to get out of bed and come to the garden. It was like the child dreamed yet was awake; her bare feet oblivious to the midnight chill. She walked quietly to her mother's bedroom and peeked in. Gerda was deep in slumber. Next she crept through the kitchen and let herself out through the door. She was dressed only in her nightclothes when she entered into the dark, but the moon picked her out and silvered her way.

The night was hushed and nothing stirred but a far away whispering voice sang to Tania. It poured forth lullaby notes, a melody sung through black lips and it was insistent. She skirted the flowerbeds and walked quickly under the holly and the sweet briar; in the dark she did not see the withered asphodels and hyacinths curled parched on the ground, not that she would have comprehended the significance of the trail of death over which she passed. She left behind the decaying roses that strewed the lawn and knew not that something evil had passed this way. Tania slipped unobserved from the Holmwood garden.

"I heard you call me, Aunt Lucy." Tania stood shivering beneath the shadow-laced canopy of an ancient elm.

Lucy approached the old tree and to Tania she looked spectral, her grave cerements clung to the form of her body, her hair a halo of auburn through which sparks of moonlight scintillated like tiny fires. She was dishevelled and her aspect was that of one hunted, or hunting, searching the darkness with fervid eyes- and something was changed in her face. The little girl felt a thrill of terror go through her body, instinct told her something was wrong in Lucy's features, they were no longer soft, there was a nasty, almost cruel hardness in her eyes. And her teeth, gleaming when she spoke, looked sharper and very pointed like little ivory spikes. This was not the Lucy who read to her in the garden, she knew it and she wanted to run away.

"Yes, dear." As if anticipating the child's intentions to flee Lucy reached out and snatched hold of Tania's hand, gripping it tightly. Her hand was a clasp of ice. Tania couldn't run now. "Come along."

"You're cold," the child squirmed. "Where are we going?"

"For a little walk," Lucy tugged at the girl's hand and began pulling her along. "I know somewhere nice and quiet where we can play."

Lucy had promised this before but then she had abandoned Tania when the man had found them together in the dark; this time there was no one about and she would not let go of Tania's hand. The woman lead the way through the mottled shadows, walking so that fast Tania found it difficult to keep pace, and the hand that gripped hers, it seared her skin as if it were tinged by frost. The bracken and the dead leaves hurt Tania's bare feet but Lucy would not relent nor slow her step and soon the Holmwood's house and elm and the underbrush were left behind and the moon high above was an argent lamp that paved the way with apprehension. Tania did not understand why she was so afraid, she had never been scared with Lucy before, and she wanted to run the other way but she couldn't. She could not even cry out for the nightworld unyielding rushed them onward, gulping them down into the shadows. Soon they came upon a long, high wall over which a thick vine crawled, and along the length of the stones they moved as spectres move, blending whitely into the swirling carpet of ground fog that divided as they ran. At length they sprinted past midnight and a great iron gate opened the way before them and they passed through. A little wind rippled over their skins. Inside the gate was a stone garden nurtured by the ashes of the dead. This was a wild, eclectic nether land of cracked cherubim and verdigris-tinged seraphs.

Lucy led the way and they descended an overgrown terrace to espy a row of crypts starkly drawn in the lunar beams; the fledgling vampire and the child in white seemed to float in an ocean of mist. Here were elegantly wrought monuments of granite and marble, a gorgeous celestial city of richly ornamented tombs crumbling silently under the weight of neglect. Between the rows they passed, under eaves of carved stone, to flit by biers sculptured with fractured rosettes and hung in rigid tassel, the mists swirling in eddies. With flowing locks Beauty reclined upon an eternal bower, guarded by an angel clasping a wreath of laurel; a little boy in stone held up a candle to light his path to heaven, the Lord's Prayer was a broken stele at their feet. Stone trumpets made a silent clarion call to deaf ears, harps and pipes and chiselled bouquets were detailed everywhere, defiled crosses and mouldering tumuli were aisles through which they flew. Lucy paused a moment beneath a seraph, her wide eyes fixed upon its benevolent visage, but Lucy was not contemplating the divine but rather in contempt of it. Her grasp of Tania's hand was so tight that the little girl squirmed and whimpered. Moonlit embers crackled through a fan of stone plumage. They were alone at last and now Lucy could feed.

"Is it much further, Aunt Lucy? I'm so tired," Tania complained.

A look of elation and carnal joy was a cloud that darkened Lucy's once pretty face. "Nearly there my darling."

The vampire woman smiled, opening her lips to reveal the pointed awls of sharp fangs at the corners of her mouth. She could see the slim curve of Tania's neck and she shuddered as if in ecstasy and stooped to kiss the child.

"_Lucy!"_

Startled, Lucy let go of Tania's hand and looked up.

Arthur could not believe his eyes- he had waited by her crypt for hours and even then had refused to truly believe that this horror could be anything other than false. Yet here before him, white and in her grave clothes was the walking form of his dead sister. He could barely suppress a shudder of disgust, it was true, Lucy was now a damned soul, but perhaps they _had_ made a dreadful mistake, perhaps Lucy was not dead at all but had been interred alive. That idea in itself was terrible beyond belief. Yes, it must have been a dreadful mistake for here was Lucy standing before him. But no, this was not illusion, there could be no doubt, Lucy _was_ dead and that was the horrible truth.

"Arthur," Lucy's sibilant call sounded like drops of water splashing upon a hot stone, "dear brother." She licked her lips and made a passing caress over her bosom, inviting her brother to sample the joys of depravity. Tania looked on in terror and Arthur was appalled.

But she was lovely and she was horrible too, Arthur had to believe it now. Jonathan's words had to ring true for Lucy was now a thing of the night, a thing composed of lurid dusks and corrupted by evil. She stood in horrible replica of the woman in Jonathan's diary, the woman he had staked at the castle of Count Dracula. Like her, Lucy was beautiful but tainted, radiant but obscene. Lucy's pretty face and poise no longer seemed sweet, nor was it innocent but rather her visage had come alive and she teetered on the verge of what could only be described as unclean. She smelled of earth and heliotrope and the moonlight in her auburn locks crackled with electric sparks. Her vision shimmered. Arthur's eyes widened and the thing that was his sister left the little girl's side and stepped closer.

"Lucy!" Her name was the only thing that could pass between his lips, the only thing he could utter.

She came closer, passing through the mists that rolled off at either side like water over glass, slithering as a serpent slithers, so close now that he could feel the coldness emanating from her flesh. Lucy was smiling. Surely she could not be alive, it was impossible!

"Dear Arthur, why didn't you come sooner?"

There was something terrible in the way she spoke; it reminded Arthur of an animal that had suddenly learned the art of human speech. In her eyes a fire had begun to ignite, it flickered and burned with a kaleidoscope of variegated incandescence, glowing hot and vicious. In that gaze Arthur saw the reality of what damnation meant, saw the mortal coil remoulded in black clay. She had such a red, red mouth made all the more livid by the whiteness of her skin and her smile, that parting of her lips was truly awful. Lucy's mouth was studded with a row of dagger-like teeth.

How lovely she looked despite this unspeakable change. Lucy's face shone white like a lamp and her skin; the contours of her young body were plainly visible through the flimsy material of her gown. Arthur felt a terrible urge to hold her, a frisson that reverberated through the length of his flesh, from head to toe and back again. The feeling tightened at his groin.

"Come," she whispered from the furnace of her perfumed mouth, her tongue alive with fire, her hand reaching up to touch his face. "Let me kiss you." The earth seemed to shudder beneath his feet and Arthur wanted to blot out this ghastly vision but could not retreat from it. His whole body had assumed a rigid state of paralysis; a sickening perversity shot a volt of desire through his frame.

There remained but one pace left between Arthur and Lucy, a divide wider than the distance to the stars, a space shorter than half a breath. Little Tania whimpered and began to sob, the dense air closing over her in a shapeless cloud and Lucy reached up her hands to clasp Arthur, to bring her brother in close to her flesh, to push against him, let him feel the softness of her breasts, all the while stretching her red lips wide with that hideous vulpine smile. Arthur was lost, his own lips soundlessly forming the echo of her name. He felt his senses slipping away and Lucy readied herself to strike.

In that instant Van Helsing erupted from the misty shadows, real and solid and made of living flesh. With one hand he thrust Arthur Holmwood aside and sent him reeling, holding up the other, brandishing a crucifix before Lucy. As Arthur fell against the tumuli Lucy hissed and recoiled, slinking back like a cat, her eyes wide with disgust and fear, baring her fangs and making claws of her fingers. The little girl Tania shrieked and clung to the rigid corner of a tomb.

Lucy spat at Van Helsing but he did not take his eyes from her, thrusting the gleaming cross closer and closer, forcing the revenant away until her back pushed against the carved wall of a crypt. In one lightning move he touched the splayed Jesus to Lucy's forehead and her scream shattered the darkness and crashed about the avenue of graves. Her pale skin sizzled and burned and her seamless brow was seared with an angry mark in the shape of the cross. Howling she ducked beneath his arm and bolted for the safety of her tomb. Appalled, Arthur ran after his sister.

When Lucy's final scream had subsided Doctor Van Helsing walked quickly over to Tania. The child was crying and trying to hide. The doctor took off his coat and pulling the little girl gently from the shadows said, "Put this on."

"Please, I want to go home," Tania told him, as he knelt down beside her and wiped away her tears.

"And so you shall. I'll just go and fetch Mr. Holmwood and then we can all go home together."

"Not Aunt Lucy?"

"No," Van Helsing reassured her, "not Aunt Lucy. Now, you sit there and be a good girl. You look like a teddy bear now. Will you wear this pretty thing?"

He hung the crucifix around Tania's neck.

"There, isn't that lovely?" Van Helsing smiled and pulled the coat closer about the child's body. "Now, you promise not to run away?"

"I promise."

"Good. If you watch over there, you will see the sun come up." He pointed above the tombs to where the pink blush of dawn had begun to tinge the sky. Tania nodded and looked toward the horizon.

"Keep warm," he told her and standing up he turned toward Lucy's tomb.

"You understand now?" Van Helsing faced Arthur over Lucy's open coffin.

"But why Lucy?" Arthur was bewildered, he was still finding the horrible truth of Lucy's walking death inconceivable; things like this only existed in horrible dreams.

"Because of Jonathan. You read my note in his diary about the woman he found at Klausenburgh. This is Dracula's revenge. Lucy is to replace that woman."

Van Helsing recalled the broken frame and the triangular remnant of what had been Lucy's photograph that he had found in Castle Dracula. He should have realised then, should have known that the evil would spread and that Lucy had been marked from the very first. He had been a fool.

"Oh, no!"

Van Helsing met Arthur's eyes. "I've watched her tomb each night since she was interred three days ago. Tonight she ventured out for the first time. Holmwood, I know your one wish is that Lucy should rest in peace. I promise to fulfil that wish but first, if I have your consent, she can lead us to Dracula."

Holmwood was dismayed at what Van Helsing intimated and appeared physically revolted.

"How can you suggest such a thing? That she should be possessed by this evil for another second! And what about Gerda's child out there? And the others she will defile? Oh, no, I couldn't. I couldn't."

"Of course," Van Helsing replied gently, his request so very important but he could not risk distressing Holmwood further, he needed his help in this matter, it was vital that Dracula be found and vanquished. "Will you take that child home and then meet me back here in about an hour's time?"

Arthur looked warily to Lucy's tomb.

"It's all right," the Doctor reassured him, "it's nearly dawn. She won't leave the coffin again."

Holmwood nodded his acknowledgment and knew that what would soon follow would be an episode of unspeakable horror.

Reel Nine

Morning sunlight vainly warmed the cold stone of Lucy's sepulchre, its rays spilling in through the wrought iron grate, dissipating the last translucent ribbons of mist that curled along the ground. The light found Arthur and Van Helsing within and cast their shadows upon the west wall. Both stood beside Lucy's stone bed and both looked upon the woman lying therein. Her head was resting upon the blue velvet pillow, her hair crimson silk that framed the dreadful cruciform burn on her forehead. Lucy's skin was pliant and her lips the colour of pomegranate seeds. The shape of her breasts and the pink of her nipples pressed against the translucent fabric of her shroud. Even the curve of her hips and the dark triangle above her sex could be seen. What they were about to do seemed like the most awful desecration imaginable. Lying in state she looked quite undisturbed, but a dreadful fetor of sickness and corruption co-mingled with the grave offerings reeked up from the coffin's shallow confines. It was as if the nauseous stench leaked from the very pores of Lucy's skin and Arthur shuddered, unable to disguise his disgust. Difficult as it was to believe that his sister had become a thing that fed on human blood, a thing that could only find peace through the most terrible of means of deliverance, Arthur was forced to face the grim truth. But Lucy had yet to taste her first bloody meal and perhaps she could be released from this foul curse.

Doctor Van Helsing placed a leather pouch on the edge of the stone box and proceeded to undo the laces that bound it together. Arthur Holmwood's eyes widened in horror at the gruesome display Van Helsing revealed, of wooden stakes and a rounded mallet. He suddenly felt sicker, his stomach freezing over with a dreadful pain that stabbed at his insides. Outside the crypt an autumnal fall of seared leaves drifted in the breeze. A songbird trilled from somewhere amid the branches of the birch and the oak. To Arthur the world and every other thing in it seemed tranquil and serene, but this vision he looked upon in the tomb, of stake and violence, it was hideous.

"Is there no other way?"

Van Helsing shook his head in the negative.

"But it's horrible!" Holmwood clasped a hand about Van Helsing's arm in a futile attempt to stay the man from what he was about to do.

"Please try and understand," the Doctor implored of Arthur, his face set in earnest and knowing full well the import of the dreadful act he must accomplish. "This is not Lucy, the sister you loved. It is only a shell, possessed and corrupted by the evil of Dracula." The Doctor gently, but firmly uncurled Arthur's fingers and pushed his arm away. "To liberate her soul and give it eternal peace we must destroy that shell for all time! Believe me, there is no other way."

Arthur backed away, shaking his head in disbelief as Van Helsing picked up a stake and the mallet. The Doctor seemed to hesitate momentarily as if testing the strength of the timber to be certain that it would not split in twain when he drove it home. Arthur wanted to look away but found that even though he tried his eyes were locked upon the horrible spectacle. He pushed back against the wall of the crypt where Van Helsing's shadow stained the hewn stone.

The Doctor turned his gaze from Arthur and looked down upon Lucy. Her lips were glistening, almost inviting and her dark lashes brushed against her cheek. For a dreadful moment his resolve almost fled, his moral conscience wavered. This was a beautiful woman whose body he must defile, but he suppressed the guilt, pushed it into a chamber deep within his soul. He had to do what was right or Lucy would rise again and visit her own foul malediction upon the world. No one would be safe, not the innocent child she had lured into the night, not any other living soul whom she should choose to feed upon. He positioned the tip of the stake over Lucy's left breast, the lethal point indenting her grave clothes just above the pale rose of her nipple. Arthur watched on horrified, he thought to wrestle the sharp sliver of wood from Van Helsing's grip and fling it away but his limbs were paralysed and his feet held him rooted to the spot. The hammer rose high, its warped shadow darkening Arthur's staring eyes as it climbed the wall, and then it came smashing down.

The resounding crack was the first horror to assail Holmwood's ear, the second was the awful scream that issued from his sister's mouth. It was as nothing compared to her shriek when the crucifix had burned her forehead. The scream shattered the thick atmosphere of the vault and reverberated from wall to wall. Arthur had never in his life heard such savagery and pain poured forth in one unholy cry. Lucy's eyes opened and almost bulged from their sockets, her tortured shriek continuing in one long, drawn out cacophony of horror. Holmwood clutched at his chest as if the stake had pierced his own heart. A gout of blood shot up from Lucy's torn breast, splashing a bright red spray over Van Helsing's jacket and staining the white of her cerements. Still screaming Lucy grabbed at the stake, her cold flesh meeting with Van Helsing's and she tried desperately to wrench it out. Sickened, Arthur turned away and clamped his hands to his ears to shut out the dreadful noise of her screaming. She let go of the bloody stake and thrashed about like a wild animal, clawing at her executioner, spitting a fury of blasphemies and biting through her lower lip, a gush of crimson bile erupting from her mouth. As Lucy writhed in the rigid length of her box Van Helsing raised the mallet a second time and brought it crashing down again. The woman struggled so much that the hammer narrowly missed striking his own hand, and she fought him, clutching at his arm and almost wrenching the bone from its socket. A speckling of gore christened Lucy's once lovely visage, her eyes rolled back into their sockets and were alight with flame. Another blow drove the wooden spike deep and as far into her flesh as it would go.

Van Helsing gave a groan and dropped the mallet but did not withdraw. He stood steadfast and looked on as Lucy's struggles began to lessen, as her body stiffened and her grip on his arm relaxed. At length her curses became a low moan and then they were silenced, her fingers opening like a dying flower, and she let go. With one final sibilant hiss she went limp like a broken doll and lay still. He saw the fire in her eyes go out, two hellish lamps that abruptly dimmed, their hue dulled by a glazed translucence. She closed her eyelids and her silken lashes rested once again on her pale cheeks. Finally the tide of blood stemmed its flow and began to soak into the grave soil in the bottom of the coffin. The foul odour of corruption began to dissipate and Van Helsing motioned for Arthur to approach but Holmwood was loath to do so. The Doctor insisted and the two men stared down upon Lucy's defiled body.

It was then that something miraculous occurred. The demon of possession gave up its hold on Lucy's flesh and the cruciform brand on her forehead disappeared.

It was an eternity that slipped by in the calculated measurement of an hour. In the cemetery Holmwood had turned away from Lucy's coffin and vomited as Van Helsing wiped the blood from his hands; it took a short while before he had regained enough of his strength to help Van Helsing replace the stone lid. Now he sat in Van Helsing's rooms and the Doctor was pulling the stopper from a decanter and proceeded to pour a neat brandy.

"Drink this," Van Helsing told him and Arthur shook his head.

"I'm all right now."

"Drink it," Van Helsing insisted and made Arthur take the crystal of amber fluid.

"Thanks," was all Arthur could reply. Holmwood swallowed the alcohol in one gulp. It burned its way through his body and he closed his eyes for a moment, letting the alcohol work upon his nerves. Still the horror of what he had witnessed swum behind his eyelids and he opened them and reached for Jonathan's diary.

Doctor Van Helsing was deep in thought; he walked around the back of Arthur's chair while he pondered, lifted a silver box from a side table and withdrew a cigarette. Holmwood skimmed through the journal then marked a page with his thumb. Still holding his empty glass he tapped with his free fingers on the book's cover.

"There is so much in Jonathan's diary I don't understand," he said to Van Helsing, his eyes full of questions that he knew would be impossible to answer. "Can Dracula really be as old as it says here?" It was extremely hard to believe, but then he had just seen a wooden stake pounded into his sister and had seen her face, peaceful in true death, the mark of the possession erased as if it had never branded her skin.

Van Helsing threw him a serious look and closed the lid of his cigarette box. "We believe it's possible. Vampires are known to have gone on from century to century. Records show that Count Dracula could be five or six hundred years old." He tapped the end of his cigarette on the lid of the case and struck a match. The tip of the tobacco came to life in fire and a wisp of acrid smoke curled into the air.

What Arthur did not understand was that the vampire was not a creature that obeyed the accepted constraints of time. It was a thing that was born in some horrible and unimaginable way, coming into a dark existence like a thought is conjured- out of nothing, somehow existing and yet still intangible. It could live for an age protracted, for an eon uncounted and cleave its sick and unholy body to the shadows. Some sable hand had fashioned this one, for Dracula was clever, vacuity was not what composed his undead being and his thirst for blood was a hunger perpetual.

"Another thing," Arthur went on, "I always understood that, if there were such things, they could change themselves into bats or wolves."

"That's a common fallacy." Van Helsing paused and drew on his cigarette, this time walking in front of Arthur and taking the empty glass from his hand. "Holmwood, the study of these creatures has been my life's work." He placed the glass down on the liquor cabinet beside the brandy decanter and turned to face Arthur. "I've carried out research with some of the greatest authorities in Europe and yet we've only just scratched the surface. You see, a great deal is known about the vampire bat. But details of these reanimated bodies of the dead. . . the _undead_ as we call them. . . are so obscure that many biologists will not believe they exist." He gathered up his coat. "Of course, you're shocked and bewildered. How can you expect to understand in so short a time? But you've read and experienced enough to know that this unholy cult must be wiped out."

Van Helsing donned his coat and began to button it, smoke still lifting from the cigarette he had all but forgotten. Arthur looked at Jonathan's diary as if it affirmed without doubt all the proof he needed now that Lucy had met with such a terrible death and had been liberated from an eternity of horror. He closed the red-bound volume as the doctor straightened his collar.

"I hope perhaps that you will help me."

"I'll do anything you say." Holmwood replied with conviction and put the book on the table.

"Thank you. Of course, we do know certain things." Van Helsing paused, knowing that what he was about to say might sound somewhat harsh, but the time for sensitivity was long passed. "You witnessed one a little while ago."

Arthur lowered his eyes and repressed a shudder.

"And we also know that, during the day, the vampire must rest in his native soil. Now. . ." Here he broke off for a moment and sat in a chair facing Arthur. "When I went to Castle Dracula, a hearse came tearing through the gates." As if to emphasise this recollection Van Helsing held up the hand still holding the burning narcotic, but his face was alight with visible lucidity. "In that hearse was a coffin. I believe it contained Dracula and a bed of his own earth."

Arthur was listening intently, his right eyebrow slightly raised. Perhaps Van Helsing was onto something here. It was what he needed at the moment, someone to think clearly for him until the shock of Lucy's death and rebirth and death had lessened. "To get here," Van Helsing continued, "that hearse would have to come by the frontier of Ingstadt. They'll have a record there of where it was going."

Arthur nodded his agreement.

"We need that address." Van Helsing stubbed his cigarette out in a shallow ashtray. "Will you come with me to Ingstadt?"

There was a flicker of concern in Arthur's countenance; he did not want to leave Mina alone.

"How long will it take? I must let Mina know."

Van Helsing stood up as Arthur took up his own coat.

"With any luck, we should be back by tomorrow morning."

The sign stated "Douane Gollamthaus" and it was hung on the side of the border where the principalities were divided by a black and white striped barrier. Van Helsing and Holmwood had crossed that border and had entered the station only to find the Frontier Official most uncooperative. He was a stooped individual dressed in his nightshirt and he had sloppily tucked that nightshirt into his trousers, but to little use. Though it was late he had gone to the trouble of donning his official's cobalt, gold-sewn hat, but he did not appreciate the late callers. He was coughing and after he had stopped convulsing he would begin coughing again. When these fits eventually subsided he adjusted his spectacles at least six times, an irritating habit no less that annoyed Doctor Van Helsing. While he did this he perversely evaded every one of Van Helsing's requests.

The two men stood before the Douane's desk and had pleaded with him for the last fifteen minutes, but to no avail.

"I'm afraid that is quite out of the question, sir. Against regulations." He shook his head for the twentieth time at Van Helsing.

"All we want to know is where the coffin was going." Van Helsing removed his gloves and in exasperation put his hands palm-down flat on the desk.

"I cannot give away information without proper authority," insisted the official. He waved a voluminous book of ridiculously outdated laws before the two men's faces.

Doctor Van Helsing was not interested in such things and reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a card. "This is a matter of great urgency. I am a doctor." He proffered the card as proof in the hope that it would sway his case.

The Douane officer simply shrugged and passed Van Helsing's card aside as if it did not exist. "I'm sorry, sir." Van Helsing retrieved his card and pushed it further under the officer's nose but the man dismissed it again and did not even bother to look.

This was beginning to prove quite exasperating. It had turned into a bickering match over who had authority and who should be privy to it.

Arthur had had enough; if you could not catch a fly with vinegar then you must try honey. He pulled his billfold from his inner coat pocket and removed a note.

"You've got to have permission from the ministry in writing."

"But..." began Van Helsing becoming quite vexed and rolling his eyes in disgust when he realised that there could be no reasoning with this foolish individual.

"I have my orders, and I must obey them. It is laid down in the government regulations that, under no circumstances..."

Arthur waved his bribe in the air, just beyond the official's reach.

The man looked with new interest at the money, and Holmwood skewered the note on a paperweight pin, but he did not let the fool snatch it up.

". . . under no circumstances may an unauthorized person be permitted to examine. . . "

Arthur skewered another note to the former.

The official glanced greedily at the money and then at Van Helsing and then at Arthur. The question to do or not to do hung perilously in mid air. Abruptly he put down the law book he had been touting and in a flash the paper weight and the money were snatched up and safely tucked away inside the desk. A scroll of paper rolled down the incline and came to rest against an open ledger and a half-dozen ink stamps rattled before they were once again still.

"Of course," he made a lame excuse, "in the case of an emergency, we do sometimes make an exception to that. Seeing this gentleman is a doctor..." The man half-nodded at Van Helsing and emerged from behind his desk and was wracked by another fit of coughing. No doubt it was all the dust in this place, Van Helsing thought, and he turned his head away from the stream of wetness that sprayed from the official's mouth. "When did you say it was, sir?"

"May the thirteenth."

It was rather ludicrous watching the man walk up to a bird cage and whistle to a somewhat unimpressed canary before attempting to locate the required ledger amid the rubble of disorderly files. At length he pulled out a folder.

"May the thirteenth," he said with self-importance. "Klausenburgh to Karlstadt. Let me see." He flipped a couple of pages. "Here it is. One hearse. One coffin. J. Marx, 49 Frederickstrasse, Karlstadt."

It was an address that Arthur knew all too well.

Reel Ten

Gerda entered the sitting room where Mina sat quietly sewing. Looking up at the maid Mina held her silver needle poised momentarily like a gleaming exclamation mark in mid air. She had forsaken her black mourning garb for white lace and a glittering sapphire brooch nestled at the dip where her slender neck melded into her bosom. She looked questioningly at Gerda.

"There's a young lad with a message for you," she told Mina, motioning her head in the direction of the front door. "Personal, he said. He would not give it to me." Gerda sounded offended and wanted to comment on the young man's lack of manners but decided to remain quiet. Instead she elevated her chin slightly and pinched her mouth closed.

"All right, Gerda. I'll see him."

Mina put aside her needlepoint and stood up to follow Gerda, but the housemaid had stepped outside the sitting room already and was heading in the direction of the kitchen. A young man was slouched in the open doorframe, his clothes were grubby, as was his face and he wore a frayed cap. He would have been a handsome lad if someone had given him some soap and a tub of bathing water. His tone of voice was not exactly endearing either.

"Yes?" Asked Mina of her youthful messenger.

"You Mrs. Holmwood?" He was a little bit surly.

"I am."

"Got a message for you. You're to go to 49 Frederickstrasse right away, he says. And you're not to tell anyone."

Mina made a stifled sound of incredulity that she suppressed in her throat. "Who says?"

"Arthur Holmwood, he calls himself. Said you'd know him."

"That's impossible. My husband has gone to Ingstadt."

"Not if he gave me this message, he hasn't," retorted the youth. "And he gave me this message. Good night."

The lad turned his back and walked away before Mina could ask any further questions. Perplexed, she closed the door.

Mina stood chilled in the foggy midnight air looking up at the lamp-lit sign, "J. Marx, Undertaker and Mortician." So this was 49 Frederickstrasse. Mina shivered and she didn't like being here alone, but if Arthur had summoned her then obviously he had had a very good reason to do so. Although her fox fur and her green velvet cloak afforded some warmth this cul-de-sac was as cold as the arctic. She looked around and could smell the heady scents of magnolia. There was no noise in the street- no doubt because it was late, but a small sound at least might have put her a little more at ease. But why would Arthur call her to an undertaker's at night? It made no sense and to come alone and not tell anyone. What with Lucy's wasting death and the strange circumstances surrounding it Mina felt rightfully ill at ease. She shivered and pulled on the doorbell. It rang. There was only silence after the last jangle had died. She rang again. Another silence. Mina was beginning to lose her nerve. She wondered where Arthur could be and why didn't Mr. Marx come to his door? If no one could hear perhaps there was another entrance she could try. She moved away from the main building and walked hesitantly toward the rear where the stables might be. It was difficult to see in the dark and the mist was thick but as she glanced about she beheld a crack of light emanating from beneath the door to an adjoining building. Perhaps the Marx's were up late, finishing off some work and just did not hear her call. She walked over to the building and the smell of shaved timbers came to her nostrils. She lifted up a hand and pushed on the door, it opened slowly and quietly.

"Arthur?"

She was in a coffin workshop where a dozen different boxes from a simple pine to an elaborate cedar casket were stationed on pedestals in various stages of completion. She put a tentative step on a small set of stairs and paused to look about. The workshop, lit by four hanging lanterns that gave off only dulled light was as cold as ice. Mina could just see well enough so that she did not trip and hurt herself, and she pulled her cloak tighter in a failing attempt to keep warm. It was cold outside but it was even colder in here, and what was that nasty odour lurking under the scents of sawdust and wood stain? The floor was unexpectedly clean, the timber shavings had been raked and swept and stuffed into hessian bags, a great coil of rope hung from a strut, in a rack near a huge cutting table were bolts of silks and other cloths for trimming.

As her eyes tracked the dim surrounds they came to rest on a coffin that looked strangely out of place where it rested at the very rear of the workshop. She was somehow compelled to approach it. Oddly it was white where none of the other coffins were white; it looked like a great block of ice floating in a sea of shipwrecked debris. Mina descended the last of the steps and slowly walked up to the coffin. Moisture was condensing on the box, and the cold, it was glacial, as if winter were about to awake from under the lid. Her heart was thumping a little faster and she had begun to be afraid. She was about to call out to her husband again but his name died on her tongue.

She looked down and could not look away, like one hypnotised, a strange music was playing in her ears, so very far away, but there nonetheless. As she looked upon the icescape of that coffin the lid began to slide back.

And all the lamps in the workshop went out.

The sun had only just come up, that moment of the dawning when the world was still partly in shadow and the last stars were blinking out in the sky dome. Arthur Holmwood and Doctor Van Helsing had only just arrived back from Ingstadt and were sitting in Holmwood's parlour drinking tea when Gerda entered still dressed in her nightclothes.

"Are you sure I can't get you anything to eat, sir?" she asked of Arthur, but he shook his head and stood up. He was so tired, they had been up all night and neither he nor Van Helsing had had much by way of sleep since the death of Lucy. But rest would have to wait. Very soon they must go to J. Marx. Arthur hoped his body and mind were up to it after the horrors he had seen.

"No, thank you Gerda," he told her, handing her his empty teacup. "We haven't time, but I would like a word with Mrs. Holmwood before we go. Would you go up, please, and see if she's awake yet?" Doctor Van Helsing sipped his tea. The warm liquid was fortifying and warmed him. He watched Gerda put down Arthur's empty cup.

"Yes, sir."

As the maid left the room Arthur removed a handkerchief from his pocket and daubed at his lips, then stuffed the cloth away. Van Helsing stood up and set down his cup.

"Are you ready?"

Arthur nodded that he was. Both men walked to the door, Van Helsing wrapping his scarf about his neck, Arthur buttoning his coat. They were met by Gerda in the hall, a look of consternation in her face.

"She's not there, sir."

"Not there?"

"No, sir."

Before anyone could register alarm Mina's voice spoke from behind them. All three spun about.

"Good morning."

"Mina," Arthur admonished her gently, "you gave me quite a fright. Where have you been at this hour of the morning?"

She was clutching her fur very closely and her eyes were glittering blue scintillates.

"It was such a lovely day," she looked over Arthur's shoulder at Van Helsing, "I got up early and went for a walk in the garden. I didn't expect you back so soon." The scent of lavender and roses clung to her skin.

"I'm afraid I've got to go out again." Arthur's tone was apologetic.

"Oh…when will you be back?" Her hand never left her throat.

"I can't say for sure." He paused and took in her appearance. Something had changed about her but he didn't quite know what. She looked alive and joyous despite the fact that her skin was pastel. "Mina, you look pale."

Mina cast her eyes downward. Notwithstanding the lack of colouring in her cheeks there was something else about her that made Arthur look deeper. It was as if her eyes were sparkling with a light they had never possessed before, shining with a secret awareness that Arthur perceived but couldn't fathom.

"Are you all right?"

She looked up and reprimanded him with a gentle irritation in her tone. "Arthur darling don't fuss. I feel perfectly well."

He bent to kiss her but she turned her head ever so slightly so that his lips barely grazed her cheek. "Good bye, darling."

Arthur gave a little concerned smile and she smiled in return, but as the two men left the house the smile wilted on her lips and atrophied like a dying rose.

At 49 Frederickstrasse Mr. Marx could barely remember Arthur Holmwood, even when the gentleman pressed him about the recent passing of his sister. The undertaker remained vague and had difficulty remembering anything. Van Helsing gently placed his hand on Arthur's arm and shook his head. Lucy was gone now, there was nothing they could do about that, but they must focus on the matter at hand, they had to find Dracula's coffin and this was simply wasting precious time. What Arthur hated the most was the very fact that even as he had been here, looking upon Lucy's body, Dracula's coffin had been on the premises, somewhere out back and he had not known.

Marx led the two men out back into the mortuary.

"Perhaps you'd better let me lead the way." The befuddled old man muttered aloud, "I know these steps. They can be dangerous." He began to wildly gesticulate as if to emphasise his point. "We don't want to have an accident, do we?"

He gave an absent-minded chuckle as the three of them descended the stairs, hardly expecting that his gallows humour would be appreciated. "No, no, we don't," he continued to talk in a matter-of-fact monotone, "but you know, an old man came here once to see his dear departed and he fell down these stairs...ha, ha...it was quite amusing… yes, he came to pay his last respects, and he remained to share them."

Holmwood could only shake his head and bite down on his lower lip, this didn't seem an appropriate time for absurd wit, and this was the man who had interred his sister. It made him shudder.

"Quite amusing!" Marx went on but then stopped abruptly. Van Helsing gave Arthur a gentle nudge so that his companion would hold his tongue. "Well, now, where are we? Where are we? Where are we?" Searching the room Marx leant over and drummed his hands on a coffin lid. "It's around the back somewhere. Oh well, it's bound to be at the back, isn't it?" Arthur looked at Van Helsing and shook his head. Marx chuckled absently to himself and waved the two men to bring up the rear. "Come on, this way, gentlemen, do follow me. I know where it is... this way."

They manoeuvred past a coffin perched precariously on two rickety saw-horses, scattering a drift of sawdust in their wake, and upon entering into the rear of the workshop the undertaker froze in his gait, his eyes wide open with surprise. After a few incoherent mumblings and gesticulations he turned and faced Van Helsing. "Well, where is it?" Van Helsing could hardly answer to man's dumfounded exclamation. "This is extraordinary!"

There were two coffin stands but there was no coffin on them.

"It was there," Marx, pointed and protested, waving his hands about in disbelief. He paused momentarily in his confusion and put a finger up to his chin, trying to reel in his muddled memory. "I know it was 'cause I saw it only yesterday… why I really don't understand who could have moved it." Or where it had gone for that matter!

The mystery of the coffin's removal perplexed both Arthur and Van Helsing too. This made their task so much more difficult. What were they to do now? Dracula was toying with them, leading them on; cleverly staying one step ahead. Just how were they to find this thing of darkness before it spread its dreadful blight further? There were no immediate answers on offer.

They were gone for most of the day and eventually the night slid in between purple shadows and chased away the daylight, yet they were still no closer to finding Dracula's lair. Arthur was beginning to show signs of fatigue and Van Helsing, obsessing with the nature of the vampire could think of nothing but grave earth and churchyards and ruins till his mind reeled and he could not focus. They had visited at least eight abandoned premises within the precinct, a derelict manor, an old warehouse among them and not one sign of the monster had presented itself. It was most discouraging. But Mr. Marx had said the coffin had been there, and only a day had passed, so Dracula must be close at hand, playing a game of cat and mouse with them, and of course Dracula was winning.

Mina sat quietly, having returned to her needlepoint and every now and then she glanced up at Arthur and Doctor Van Helsing as they pored over a map they had laid out on the top of a settee. Arthur was holding a pot of coffee and eating a dried biscuit because his stomach had begun to complain.

"The driver of the hearse might have lied to the frontier official about where he was going." Arthur ventured as he swallowed a mouthful.

"Yes," returned Van Helsing, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at Mina as if to cue Arthur to lower his voice, "but that fellow at the morgue wasn't lying. He was really surprised when he saw the coffin wasn't there. He must have had it sometime."

Mina caught Van Helsing's look from beneath lowered eyelids and paused in her sewing. Once he had turned back to Arthur she turned her ear to their whispered conversation, intent on knowing what was going on. So far she had been told nothing, and if there were some terrible mystery that linked them all to the deaths of Jonathan and Lucy she had a right to know. The contents of Jonathan's diary had been kept secret from her too; for all their good intentions Arthur and Doctor Van Helsing were somehow failing at whatever it was they were being so secretive about, she knew this because she sensed it, their failure clung to them like damp clothes, and she was no fool.

"No," she could barely hear Van Helsing, "I think he's still somewhere here in Karlstadt."

She stopped her needle for the briefest of moments and trembled. Who? Who was somewhere here in the city, and why? Someone who didn't belong, someone who had something to do with the recent tragedies in their lives?

"But where?" Arthur questioned limply, knowing that there was not even the vaguest clue apparent to answer that question. "This is a big town."

They had already looked in several places without any success at all.

Van Helsing pointed to another location on the map.

"There are not many places he can hide, don't forget." If that were really true why hadn't they found him? Van Helsing took a red handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his nose. It was cold, almost as if winter was settling in; the weather had become so chilly; he hoped he wasn't getting a head cold, not when this monster needed to be routed.

"At least," returned Arthur, munching hungrily through his cookie, "that's good." But was it any real comfort?

Mina couldn't stand it anymore. "What are you two being so mysterious about over there?" She had become agitated and a peculiar anxiety was written in her beautiful features. All this suppressing information and what did it ultimately achieve? Arthur gave a low chuckle ignorant to his wife's growing unease and turned to face her.

"We'll be with you in a moment, my darling."

Cruelly dismissed she pinched her red lips together in irritation, and falteringly pushed the needle again through the fabric. Van Helsing tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket. It was Arthur's turn to point to a spot on the map.

"There is an old neglected graveyard about three kilometres from here..." Arthur picked up a pencil and drew a circle on the map near Van Helsing's splayed fingers, "somewhere in this area. St. Joseph's." Guiltily he put down the pencil and looked over to Mina. "Give me just one moment," he said and touched Van Helsing on the shoulder. Van Helsing nodded and took up a magnifying glass to closer examine the area that Arthur had ringed.

Arthur quietly approached and knelt before Mina. Resigning herself to their secrecy she ceased her sewing she sighed and met his eyes. He took something from his pocket and held it in both hands before her; the object was hidden from her view. A tense uneasiness began to coil within her body and she sensed waves of hot energy beginning to pulse from Arthur's clasp. It was like he held a tiny sunburst in his grasp, something hot and volatile. Something dangerous and harmful.

"Mina, my dear, don't think I'm being silly," Arthur told her, "but I'd feel much happier if, during my absence, you'd wear this for me." An unembellished cross, dangling on a delicate chain that he'd wound through his fingers spilled from between his palms and shone in the room's illumination. It glittered in the firelight. "Please don't ask me why, but just wear it for my sake."

Mina appeared physically repelled and pulled back, almost dropping her needlepoint. She pushed the sewing aside and shook, her whole body quaked. Arthur looked confused.

"Arthur, I...I..." Mina couldn't even finish her sentence because she shook so violently.

"Please, Mina."

Reluctantly she held out her hand, and Arthur placed the cross into the white cup of her palm. The woman drew in a savage breath and her hands curled into fists, her body was wracked with a convulsion and she stood bolt upright and as straight as a plank. Van Helsing spun around and Arthur leapt to his feet. She screamed, the chain dripping from her clenched hand like water spilling from the tip of a lily and she collapsed on the floor. Both men were at her side within the space of a heartbeat, Arthur lifting her head to support it in his lap while Van Helsing searched for her pulse and felt her temperature. Looking to her hand he realised what had caused the seizure and his fingers grazed the chain clenched in her fingers.

With difficulty he forced her hand open and the stigmata presented itself in all its livid glory. Mina had been tainted, had been corrupted by the Nosferatu and the cross had seared its shape into her flesh. Both Van Helsing and Arthur looked upon each other in utter horror.

Arthur carried Mina upstairs and had Gerda prepare her for bed. While Mina was being made comfortable Van Helsing investigated further and saw the marks of the vampire in her throat. They were two very red and recent punctures. This kiss had befouled Mina's virtue and would recruit her into the ranks of the undead if Dracula were not found immediately. It could only have been inflicted but a few hours ago. It was hard to believe that after all they'd done to protect Mina that Dracula had still made fools of them both. But he had not yet claimed Arthur's wife as his prize, for she had to die first and Van Helsing was not going to let that happen. Dracula had to be found before he perpetrated that foul act.

They came down from Mina's bedroom and at the newel post Arthur turned to Van Helsing and said vehemently- "You said Lucy would lead us to Dracula. Why didn't I listen to you? This would never have happened."

"You mustn't blame yourself for that, but you must have the courage to let Mina lead us now. We'll give her every protection we can. Tonight, we will watch the windows of her room. They face two sides of the house, don't they?

"Yes," whispered Arthur, his stomach flipping at his own ignorance. He should have listened to the Doctor, he and Jonathan were the only two men who had dared challenge this creature and now it had infected his very household.

Van Helsing moved in closer to Arthur, it was as if he were reading his thoughts. "I know I ask a great deal of you," the Doctor pressed, "but you mustn't weaken now." He placed a firm hand on Arthur's shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. Van Helsing removed the cross from his pocket, the cross that had seared Mina's palm and handed it to Holmwood. "We have it within our power to rid the world of this evil, and, with God's help, we will succeed."

Reel Eleven

Only the wind suspired lowly through the bushes and the trees though the rest of the night was hushed. The garden lay in a fallow state, strewn in the moonlight were the petals of dead flowers and withered leaves. From somewhere far off a dog began howling and Van Helsing pushed aside a low branch and tuned his ear to the baying. It went on for some time but because of the wind he could not get a fix from which direction it came. The sound of the dog howling eventually drifted away and the wind reclaimed its whispering. Van Helsing continued surveying the dark garden.

On the other side of the house Arthur watched too, but he had not the fortitude of Van Helsing even though he clenched the holy trinket the Doctor had given him so tightly that his fingers were turning white. He heard the dog baying and he heard the wind and he imagined he heard many other things.

Neither heard the screws in a white coffin lid spinning counter-clockwise against the grain, nor the soft scraping of timber against timber as the lid pushed free and fell to the floor.

Neither heard the night as it emerged from its well of shadows.

Mina was breathless, her bosom rose and fell rapidly and she shivered but it was not with fear, but with longing. She had peered from her bedroom window for hours now, silent, waiting. Standing and looking past her own translucent reflection thrown back from the dark glass she had watched the light of the sun drain from mulberry to grape and then give in utterly to black. She saw nothing unreal save the branches of the trees moving in the wind and sometimes Doctor Van Helsing or Arthur could be glimpsed crossing through the shades under the beams of the moon. The men were outside the house standing vigil and the servants had retired; the clock was approaching the hour of midnight and the world shivered with a restless quietude. She had waited long enough; an eternity and she could wait no longer. There was a chill in the air, something other than cold, like the last breath leaking from the purple mouth of a corpse. He was calling for her; she heard the rhapsody of his song and it filled her being. His calling was a conjuration of the joys of the divine. Mina moved away from the window and unlocked her bedroom door and the scent of dying roses filled the frozen air, the smell of a bloom gone rotten and wormy, but somehow the scent was glorious and it made her drunk with eagerness. Out onto the landing at the top of the stairs she stepped and with eyes wide in expectation looked down.

The Night was standing there in the splintered, roiling shadows, gloating upon her with a fiery gaze but Mina was not afraid. A frisson twisted a serpentine path up her spine; her nipples hardened and a slight dampness had begun in the valley between her thighs. She reached up a hand and undid the ribbon at the bosom of her nightgown. The gossamer peeled away as does the wings of a new butterfly, falling aside to expose her breasts. A rush of heat flamed through the filaments of her body. Every nerve and sinew sparked, lit by a cosmic taper, an agony that invaded her flesh, an agony of lust and sweet corruption. She had never felt this way with Arthur, but strangely that did not matter now, she felt neither guilt nor shame. Arthur's touch was warm but uninspiring, Arthur's lips did not speak in ardour and Arthur's flesh did not burn. Mina did not want to break free from this new and altogether wondrous spell, she did not for a second wish to repel the demon, and her body trembled in a series of little quakes, ripples arcing from the spreading wave of the black thing's aura. The thing of darkness called her name, syllables emerging from the enchanted throat of malediction. Yet it was such a beautiful song and it turned her flesh to water, an enchantment that made her reel and almost swoon upon the floor. The Darkness gave a twisted leer and watched her slide her nightclothes even further down so that the curves of her body were freed; it gloated upon her milky skin and changed the beautiful pitch of its midnight song, went up note, higher, higher. Obediently Mina retreated into her bedroom. She backed inch by inch toward the bed, leaving the ethereal trail of her nightdress where it fell, and spread her nakedness across a silken width of illusion and false promises. Another shock of desire went through her, a need to feel this thing's lips sealed to her lips, the darkness and her own mortal coil become one thunderous melding; a compact she would gladly make with the Devil. Mina became rigid, then went limp, a little moan escaped from her lips. The thing moved forward and the stocks of lavender and the white daisies in a crystal vase withered and became ash, a silent gust of breath swept them away.

The Darkness began to climb the stairs, flowing upward, a cascade of liquid shades deeper than an oubliette; a phantom conjured from a weave of shadows. Within its billowing cloud a chaos of sparks and molten silver whirled; it crawled up the carpeted steps, twined between the rails and slithered over the etchings hanging in the stairwell, the glass cracked in each gilded frame as it passed shedding jagged slivers soundlessly onto the stairs. From this writhing, insectile maelstrom of shadows it began to take on form, stifling the air with the sickly sweet perfume of living death. The woman gasped and moaned and sucked the tainted air into her breast and the Night sang with a choir of dark angels. Closer it came, inexorably slow and deliberate, its eyes beaming like torches, like great rubies, its lips like the gaping mouth of a bottomless inferno. As it rose it sang little slices of ecstasy and forever; that every dream Mina had ever dreamed must be cast aside, that now the way was paved to awakening unto a nightmare that was beyond pleasure. The Nightmare filled Mina's reeling mind with splendid perversity, consumed her, enveloped her, and it spilled through the door and the door closed with a muted click.

A cloud obscured the firmament and the lamp of the moon went out. As the vapours scudded over Selene the vigil in the garden became a game of blind man's bluff. Neither Van Helsing nor Arthur could see a thing and in the darkness, the world shivered imperceptibly in its counter clockwise revolution about the sun, gulping down the shadows as it whirled.

The vampire beheld the woman and it smiled as it glided toward the bed. It looked upon Mina's sculptured beauty, her rose-tipped breasts, her ivory thighs, beheld the long tresses of honey-coloured hair splayed over the quilt. She was lovely, a vision more splendid than any goddess and her lips were ripe and glistening, red as blood. Aware of the cruciform stigmata that marked her palm she hid her hand beneath the folds of the fabric. Her laboured breath was hot and with the fingers of her free hand she ran her touch over her belly and began to stroke the golden forestry crowning her sex. In a rapture Mina threw back her head and parted her legs and her scent was as potent as a newly blossomed flower. The demon paused by the side of the bed, a bower for she who must soon dream in the black perimeters of the coffin. Hovering like a bird of prey, a storm of unrest boiled in the wide firmament of its cloak. Mina was almost pleading to be taken, her gaze transfixed to the ruby glowing eyes of her demon seducer. She knew him only as the liberator of her soul; an intimate of Death, a terrifying lover who had died yet lived. The darkness began to take on form, black stars were threaded into hair; a visage was moulded into the face of the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His nose was so finely chiselled, long and slightly flared, his mouth a crimson arch that spoke of depravity and succulent evils that were joys and carnal pleasures. His eyes, they were portals through which eons had passed in flame, alight with the remnants of dead suns and broken stars, they saw beyond the frail garment of the flesh.

From the folds of his mantle he extended white, white hands, the hands of a living corpse for no blood flowed through their veins. His fingers were long and thin and ornamented with one argent band and a strange stone was fixed thereon. It was a stone whose colour was dark but had no name in human language, a finned and scaled worm seemed to awake therein, trapped in the polished gem and singing flame. Dracula perched beside Mina, and Mina lay at the precipice of the world. He leaned forward and she gasped, anticipating his contact, a shudder racing through her body. It was like pain, a sick but wonderful and breathtaking pain that heralded unnameable joys as his fingers touched her breast. The bud of her nipple became a bloom that he stroked in slow, calculated caresses so that Mina's skin contracted, and it was all an agony that she could not scream out her pleasure. His touch went on for an eternity, massaging and kneading and melting her flesh, altering, remoulding the clay from which God had fashioned Eve. Dracula's fingertips were the wings of a moth doing an exquisite dance over her skin, tracing every curve and dip and stroking and coming to rest at the opening of her sex. If it were not his flesh then it was living flame that entered therein, holding her apart and exploring deeply. Hovering, corporeal, he moved over her flesh and down, down and although he had not taken a breath in over six hundred years it was as if a desert wind seared where the wetness of a serpent's tongue slavered.

Mina wanted him- wanted him to fill her body with the fiery organ of his Dragon's tongue. Pleasure and agony were piercing her soul, a whorl of white-hot excitement and fervour. Love was unstitched from the fabric of her heart. Instead lust knotted the thread of her being and tangled up her desires. She wanted this dark thing to reach into the core of her soul, to feel the tremble of its hot lips mapping the lily-white expanse of her flesh. He was so gloriously beautiful that his presence stained every flicker of light blacker than midnight, realigned the shadows- and yet Mina saw all. She gasped as his mouth left her sex and she closed her eyes and went weak, a conscious agony convulsing every nerve so that Mina was left all but senseless. The vampire dragged his fevered kiss over her hips and once more tasted her breasts; he covered her nakedness with his robes of midnight. Engulfed they were like two beings that nothing could ever separate, dissolving into a flow of blood that poured passed Lethe into the river of night.

Dracula drew his lips back exposing a terrible row of fangs and Mina gasped and pulled his head down to her throat. That vulpine kiss was like fire, sinking into Mina's neck so deep that she clawed and groaned and tears spilled from her eyes to fall as shattered diamonds upon the bedding. The darkness erupted in a blaze more intense than a collapsing star, incendiary, and Mina gave herself up to such a delicious suffering that she never wanted to return to the land of the living. The vampire shook and quivered in its own disgusting ecstasy, drinking from the fountain of her life force, staining her soul black and seeding something dreadful and yet wonderful within her flesh, something that must now grow in a garden of evil, never to be pure again. It lay on her body like the ice over the surface of a lake in winter, cold and bathed in polar eclipse, melting joys into the heart of a Vulcan core; Mina could not withdraw, not now, not while this exquisite stupor fuelled the sensual furnace of her being, such a dulcet madness taking away her breath, her life, killing her with the physicality of pleasure. Her soul was sucked into the tenebrous realm of his form, and in that body she drowned in an ocean of blasphemous lust, the sounds of his feeding was like the tolling of bells. And the thing was ravenous, an abomination that injected a terrible venom into Mina's veins as it fed, tainted her, corrupted her, so that the darkness that was Dracula became part of her existence. The poison flowed through Mina, through the vessel of her body and it throbbed with a rush of toxins that benumbed her spirit and erased all vestiges of her former life. Without regret she forgot everything and gave up her soul, her marriage vows were blown away as if they were cobwebs threading into the wind and Arthur's face no longer existed, all that remained of him was a pale reflection caught in the mirror of a dead god's eye.

Outside in the garden, from a hidden bower high in the elm where Lucy had met with the child Tania, an owl shrieked and startled Arthur. The moon dipped briefly behind a cloud so that the world was momentarily plunged into utter darkness. His eyes flew straight up to his bedroom window where the soft glow of a lamp still shone, his fingers gripping the cross Van Helsing had given him so tightly that the silver left an indentation in his palm. No phantasm flickered across the frame of the glass. He felt his heart leaping inside his chest thinking the owl's shriek had been his wife screaming. Even as this terrible thought flashed through his head the moon was reborn from the veil of shadowy clouds. He was relieved that the sound had not come from the house when he looked up into the tree. Reassured Arthur heard a ruffle of feathers and in the high boughs he glimpsed the owl with its huge golden eyes sitting on a branch not far above his head, watching him. He realised his foolish mistake and his lips arched into an embarrassed smile, but the owl made no more cries and all was silent.

As silent as the grave.

Eventually the night gave up its grip and Helios conquered the sky. A soft pink blush was creeping over the horizon when Holmwood and Van Helsing returned indoors. In the entry hall Van Helsing unbuttoned his heavy overcoat and Arthur closed the door. It should have been warmer within the house, much warmer than it was. Cold clung to everything; the men could feel it even penetrating the soles of their shoes and it turned their breath to mist.

"Mina is safe now," Van Helsing said, rubbing his hands together, "but we must keep watch again tonight. You'd better get some rest."

"Oh, what about you?"

"Taking off his hat Van Helsing nodded toward the sitting room. "I'll be all right in there, if I may?"

"Right. I'll get you a rug from my room."

"Thank you."

Across the bottom of the stair rail Van Helsing threw his coat and scarf, though he pondered putting them back on, the chill had gone straight to his bones. He would light a fire; that would help things warm up a bit. Even as he thought this something truly awful happened. He heard the sound of broken glass shattering underfoot and looked up to see Holmwood rushing up the stairs. The man disappeared into the bedroom and Van Helsing heard one frantic cry of _"Mina!"_

In a flash the Doctor had taken to the steps, almost slipping on the shards of broken picture frame glass that littered the way. Van Helsing bounded up the stairs in double quick time and erupted into the Holmwood bedroom. Mina lay splayed naked over the bed, her lovely skin so very white in contrast to the vivid splashes of blood red that smeared her breasts and stained her thighs. She looked dead, a spent corpse brutalized and flung down, her golden hair flowing over the bedside, her torn throat dripping a pool of gore into the carpet. Arthur fell onto the bed beside his wife and gently pulled up her head, placing it on a pillow. Van Helsing freed the coverlet from the foot of the bed and draped it over the woman's nakedness.

All Arthur could think of "was she dead?" and his heart was beating so fast he too wanted to scream.

"Quickly," Van Helsing instructed him, "if we are to save her life we must not waste a moment." He called out for Gerda and the maid came running, she choked off a scream and almost fainted when she saw her mistress all pale and bloody.

"Gerda," Van Helsing told her, "I need you to get my bag quickly."

The poor woman hesitated as if she had been stunned. She could not understand what was happening for she had heard nothing, no intruder nor the breaking of the glass. How could this have occurred?

"Now, Gerda, hurry, please!" Van Helsing urged.

Gerda ran from the room with her own scream frozen in her throat.

Van Helsing had studied disorders of the blood for many years. This study in turn had led eventually to a friendship with a scholarly student, Jonathan Harker and through a quirk of fate Harker had shared in Van Helsing's twilight predication of vampires. There was much still to be learned about these creatures, and most men regarded them as myth or were too afraid to admit that such things could exist. Mina Holmwood lay in her bed at this very moment almost drained of the fluids that sustained her life, evidence that such monsters were very real indeed. Although he had performed the operation of transfusing blood from one patient to another Van Helsing had only thought it lucky that those patients had survived. It was not an operation which he was confident performing, because not enough was known about the blood. Instinct told him there was more to this life-saving exchange of fluid than merely pumping one person's ichors into the veins of another. He recalled some of his research about an Obstetrician from the beginning of the century. This man, a James Blundell, had experimented with animals using a syringe and had gone on to successfully perform the first miraculous transfusion on a patient suffering a post mortem haemorrhage. Others trying to emulate the experiment had not been so fortunate and the mortality rate had escalated, the reasons for this eluded the medical profession still.

There had been much speculation of one kind or another as to what caused such radical differences, defibrination seemed to destroy the valuable constituents of the blood and coagulation began so quickly that the rubber tubing clotted and the patient invariably died. Yet here Van Helsing was faced with a terrible choice, he had to act on faith. He reasoned that those who survived transfusions did so because their blood was compatible; an argument he had yet to put forward because most of the medical tribunals did not want to listen, thinking his idea preposterous. Blood was blood as far as they were concerned, how could one person's blood possibly be different from another's? Yet under the magnifying eye of his microscope Van Helsing had observed a variety of subtleties and differences that were so remarkable as to make him ponder the very physicality of the vital fluids that flowed through every human being on the planet. He now found himself backed into a corner, his scientific mind having to lead the way. Mr. Blundell had not delved too deeply because of prejudice; and now, Abraham Van Helsing, in this most dangerous hour was faced with taking a weighty chance or Mina would die and then, like Lucy she would roam the night as one of the living dead. He had no way of testing his theory, of whether Arthur or Gerda or even himself, should be the donor. Relying on scientific rationale and perhaps God willing all should go well, he chose Arthur. He was strong and would revitalize quickly; if his choice was a bad choice then Mina was lost and another horror would have to be perpetrated to release her soul.

He made Holmwood roll up his shirtsleeve and instructed Gerda to get a bowl of clean cotton wool and some linen bandages.

"Now lie down," the Doctor gently pushed Arthur back onto a chaise that had been moved in close to the bed. When Gerda had returned Van Helsing proceeded to set up the tools he would need. He took from his bag a small case and a kidney dish while Gerda stood watching still holding her bowl of cotton wool. He handed her a bottle of antiseptic and took from the case a sharp, hollow needle that he fixed into one end of a thin thread of rubber tubing. He inserted another into the opposite end of the tube. This hose was joined in the middle by a squeeze pump. Firstly Van Helsing bandaged Mina's right arm so that the failing pressure of what little blood was left in her might make the vein stand out visibly. Next he cleansed the dip in her elbow with the antiseptic and pushed the needle into the unconscious woman's arm. He bound it quickly to restrict any movement should she wake during the procedure. Next he repeated the actions with Arthur, and Arthur felt the horrible thickness of that sharp sliver going deep into his vein and he tried not to flinch. Van Helsing took a watch on a chain from his vest pocket and began to count off the pulse rate as he squeezed the pump. A thin ribbon of scarlet began to worm along the tube from the puncture in Arthur's vein to weave its twisting course through the pump junction and into Mina's body.

Gerda watched on nervously and remained pale throughout the entire operation, but she did not fail Van Helsing, not once.

After some time had elapsed Van Helsing replaced his watch and stopped squeezing the pump. It would be dangerous to take any more of Arthur's blood, but it seemed that Mina had had no negative reaction to the transfusion, a little colour had even returned to her face.

Gerda passed Van Helsing a scissor and the Doctor snipped through the gauze that had held Arthur's arm rigid. The Doctor removed the offending needle and dropped it gently in the kidney tray; then he daubed a knot of cotton wool with the antiseptic and pressed it tight over the tiny wound in the other man's arm. A spot of blood leaked out of the piercing but Van Helsing bent Arthur's arm upward to his shoulder. Arthur made to rise but a wave of dizziness went through him.

"Just sit still like that for a minute." Van Helsing advised Arthur as he cut through the bandages around Mina's arm. Once again he placed the bloody needle in the kidney tray and made a similar binding for her wound.

"Will she be all right?" Arthur asked, feeling a giddy rush go through his brain.

Van Helsing held up Mina's arm and checked her pulse.

"I think so. Let me see your arm."

Arthur was upon the point of fainting.

"Steady," said Van Helsing and supported Arthur by holding his back. "You all right?"

Gerda moved in closer in case she was needed. Holmwood put his hand to his forehead as if that might cease the spinning and hold the world still. In a moment the giddiness had passed. The Doctor placed the bloodstained cotton wool knot in Gerda's bowl and inspected Arthur's arm. "Yes, yes, that's very good." He timed the man's pulse then rested his hand on Arthur's shoulder. "Now, you'll need plenty of fluid. Tea or coffee or, better still, wine. Go down and have some now. That's a good fellow."

Arthur stood up. It still didn't feel so good but at least he had given of his life to save his beloved and he would do it again till every drop of his blood were gone should he need to. "Don't worry," Van Helsing assured him, "Gerda and I will take care of her."

Arthur rolled down his sleeve picked up his coat from the end of the bed, both Gerda and Van Helsing watched him as he left the room then the Doctor turned his attentions to the supine Mina. He gently pulled up the bedding and took another look at the fang marks in her neck.

"Just bathe her forehead, will you, Gerda, some eau de Cologne or something?"

"Yes, sir."

Gerda retreated to get a bowl of water and a cool cloth.

When she was gone Van Helsing began the grisly task of cleaning his transfusion equipment. Blood swirled from the needles like scarlet ink in the water.

Sometime later Van Helsing came downstairs to find Arthur had finished a glass of claret and was staring off into space. The Doctor gave Holmwood a slight nudge and the man came too, putting his glass down next to an uncorked and empty wine bottle.

"How is she now?" Arthur made to get up, but Van Helsing bid him remain seated.

"She has reacted very well." A fact for which Van Helsing was ever grateful- and that no dreadful complications had followed the transfusion. He looked tired, very tired indeed but he knew he could not rest. This unholy parasite must be found and obliterated or more of the innocent would perish. Vampirism would spread like an infection and if it went unchecked the whole populace would succumb.

"Thank God," said Arthur, his features gone wan, his eyes cloudy but his voice still lucid.

Van Helsing clipped his cufflinks through his sleeves and took his coat from over his arm.

Arthur became more animated for the wine was taking effect, and his speech became a little more agitated. "How did he get in? We watched the house all night! Your theory must be wrong. He can change into something else. He must be able to. How else could he have got in?"

The Doctor put on his coat and drew his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. "I wish I knew," was all he could manage to say as he sat down.

Gerda came into the room and she too looked exhausted. "Madam's sleeping now, sir." She addressed her words to Arthur.

Van Helsing half-sprang from his chair: "She mustn't be left!" he ejaculated but Arthur put out his hand and Gerda stepped back. "I'll go up to her. I'd like to. You stay and rest and have some wine. I'm sure you need both."

Van Helsing relaxed a little.

"Gerda, will you fetch another bottle?"

"Oh, sir," began Gerda, wringing her hands and physically squirming, "I don't like to. You know what happened last time when I disobeyed Mrs. Holmwood's orders."

"What do you mean?" Arthur questioned.

"Well, sir, Madam told me the other day that I must on no account go down to the cellar."

Doctor Van Helsing's eyes flew wide open in the instant the woman's words left her lips and he leapt from his chair as if he had been catapulted and charged past Arthur and Gerda. A look of confusion etched itself on Arthur's face and he still did not quite comprehend. He grabbed Gerda by the upper arms and began to interrogate her. The woman was on the brink of tears.

But Van Helsing had grasped the significance of Gerda's words and had run to the foyer entrance and searched around quickly for the cellar door. With his shoulder he pushed and forced all his weight upon the door. It opened with a crash for Van Helsing to see, as it was flung wide, that he stared at a white coffin. What a fool he'd been, guarding the house from the garden while this terrible creature hoodwinked them and befouled the women within, its daytime bed right beneath their feet.

He jumped down the few steps and ran to the casket, pulling up the lid but revealing only an empty bed of the demon's own grave soil. Dracula was not lying within, and Van Helsing could only assume that once again the vampire was at this very moment taking Mina with him to Hell. An ice-cold shadow billowed at the head of the stairs, a thing that writhed and floated and yet had human shape, and it was splashed all over with blood. It filled the confines of the cellar with a stench that was almost unbearable and it hissed, an animal hiss but not an animal of the earth but of one that slithered through the underworld, and its eyes were ablaze with the light of such a hatred that Van Helsing had to shield his own lest his retinas be burned out. The thing spewed forth blasphemies that its nemesis should have discovered its lair, and it gesticulated wildly and wrapped itself up in its cloak of night.

Instantly Van Helsing leapt up the steps and but a hair's breadth separated each, vampire from vampire hunter, when the darkness withdrew and the cellar door slammed shut. Van Helsing tried the handle but it would not turn.

"Holmwood," he called out but no answer came. Van Helsing acted upon instinct and he spun about in the doorway and ran back down to the coffin and withdrew from his coat pocket the very same crucifix he had used to mark Lucy's forehead. He dropped the cross into the earth and its rosary spread out in the lining of the coffin, a string of black beads and silver on putrid mould. With a leap Van Helsing ran back up the stairs and beat once again on the door.

"Holmwood," he cried out, counting the seconds that were flying by, precious, priceless seconds that meant everything between life and death and the damned hereafter. The Doctor rattled on the door and listened, trapped he could do nothing more. What was Arthur doing and was the door so thick that he couldn't hear the racket of this pounding? Perhaps the vampire had sealed it with a spell. The lock had been shattered when Van Helsing had put his shoulder to the door. If Arthur could not budge it open perhaps he was on the other side trying his hardest to breach the seal.

"Holmwood." Van Helsing yelled and then, "Holmwood!" again. The Doctor was beginning to feel fear surge through his guts, there was no more time to be lost. He pounded and thudded with clenched fists, threw his body against the panel, and just when it sounded as if the timbers were going to split the door blasted open and Holmwood was on the other side. There was no time for words despite Arthur's look of confusion. The question on Arthur's lips would have to wait till later, Van Helsing had not the time to answer; he had to save Mina- that was imperative. Quickly the Doctor pushed Arthur aside and looked about furtively.

"_Which way, which way?" _Van Helsing thought rapidly, listing in his head all the possible exits. There were three that seemed the most likely, the front entrance, the parlour and the kitchen doors. Van Helsing was about to risk taking the latter when two things happened, a window smashed loudly and a blood-curdling scream ripped down from the Holmwood bedroom above. Both men looked up at once.

Without hesitation they took the stairs together, bounding two, three at a time, kicking glass shards in their wake, Van Helsing jumping the rail at the top and Arthur entering the room just seconds behind him. Gerda lay on the floor and she was shrieking. Van Helsing ran up to her and Arthur crossed to the now empty bed. The housemaid was hysterical and clutching her head in her hands, the room was in a state of chaos; the bedding had been flung upon the floor, the window shattered, glass was strewn everywhere. Arthur bolted to the broken window and looked out, his fears having taken another blow because their bedroom was on the second floor. It seemed impossible, for how could anyone escape this way and without injury? He could see nothing in the darkness; the shards of coloured glass split under his shoes, and he prayed for Mina's safety.

Van Helsing helped Gerda to her feet. At first she fought him as if he had meant her harm, then realising, in the whirl of chaos and confusion that it was Doctor Van Helsing she began to babble senselessly.

"Gerda," the Doctor said her name firmly." "Now what happened?"

Tears were streaming down the woman's face and it was almost impossible to make sense of her incoherent raving.

"He…he," she managed to stutter after a long moment of hysteria, her eyes wide with terror. "He was here!"

Arthur came quickly over to her side. Gerda could hardly put two words together and she was searching Arthur's face as if for redemption for having committed another sin and given evil its license over their world. What she had seen she could barely describe.

"I came up here," she faltered, and then she burst into a terrified scream- "And he looked like the Devil!"

Van Helsing did not mean to cause Gerda any harm or any more distress but she had lost control of her senses and he slapped her. It didn't seem to have much effect on her composure.

"All right," Van Helsing demanded gently but urgently, there was no time to lose, every minute hung in the balance now and depended upon Gerda and what she had witnessed. "Now what happened?"

It took another lapse before the hysterical woman calmed herself enough to tell them, looking from Holmwood to Van Helsing with wild eyes, "He came in here, and he picked Madam up like she was a baby."

With these words she went limp and collapsed, breaking down into shrieks that she muffled with the balls of her fists. There was no time to console her because now they only had a few short hours to accomplish the virtually impossible, to rescue Mina and to destroy the vampire.

"Calm yourself," Van Helsing told Gerda, straightening an overturned chair and helping her to sit. He passed his fingers through his hair. Van Helsing looked almost upon the brink of exhaustion himself but he knew he must not falter now. He addressed Arthur. "There's only one place he can make for now, his home!"

Closing Reel

A corpse lay sprawled on the roadside, its limbs skewed at impossible angles.

From the weak lamplight of their gig Van Helsing and Arthur caught sight of the body. The two white horses shuddered to a halt a short distance from the body. Arthur was the first to hit the dirt, Van Helsing running a step behind. When Van Helsing reached the spot he knelt down and touched his fingers to the dead man's flesh. The man lay in a pool of blood, his neck had been snapped and his head almost torn free, the flesh had been ripped and savagely gouged, crimson stained Van Helsing's fingers. The body was still warm.

"It's a coach driver," Van Helsing confirmed to Arthur. "He's been dead about half an hour."

Without returning an answer Arthur ran back to the carriage and Van Helsing leapt up and took the reins. "Gee up!" he called to the horses and iron shoes flashed sparks along the road.

"Do you think Dracula killed that coachman?" asked Arthur.

"Of course he did!" Van Helsing snapped irritably but he didn't mean to sound exasperated. By way of compensation he added; "without a coach he'd never get home before sunrise. He would be dead."

"But even if he does get home," Arthur began to protest, "we… "

Van Helsing cut him off as he whipped the horses into a full gallop.

"He could hide in the castle vaults for years. We would lose him there."

A look of pure horror spread across Arthur's features.

"And Mina?" He asked Van Helsing and the sound of his voice was almost a whisper because he dreaded the awful implication of such a thing happening. Dreaded the truth that she too would become one of the undead.

Van Helsing returned a grim look but he did not reply.

A black carriage came thundering up the road drawn by two black horses, Dracula was at the reins, lashing the animals hard and mercilessly.

The vampire had fled with the supine Mina in his arms. She was still unconscious, her mind held in twilight. Her undead lover had borne her swiftly through the garden and into the mist, plunging into a screen of trees that enveloped both of them in shadows. A short while later Dracula had honed his ear to the sounds of the night; he was not yet far enough away from the Holmwood residence that his pursuers could not catch him up and as he listened he heard the sound of horse's hooves clopping slowly up the darkened street. It was a coach drawn by a man muffled against the cold in a thick coat and woollen scarf, his cheeks were scarlet and the chill was frosting on his brows. The coach moved slowly along the deserted road, the man's breath was a thin ribbon of mist in the air as he quietly hummed to himself. He had not seen another living being for the last hour and now, to his surprise a tall figure clad in black emerged from the trees and laid a golden-haired woman out on the road. She lay still as if she was dead and a strange little thrill shuddered through the driver. Something wasn't quite right but he had to stop, there was nothing else for it. Perhaps there had been an accident and help was needed. He reigned in his two horses and peered down at the man.

"Are you all right, do you need assistance?"

Before the last words had left his lips the tall man in the ebon cape turned his face upward and the pale light of the moon caught it and glanced off his dagger-like teeth there fixed in the cavernous twist of a feral snarl. With the speed of lightning he reached up impossibly elongated arms, claws hooked about the coachman's shoulders and dragged him from his seat. There was barely time for the startled driver to react as he looked into the visage of evil itself. The creature twisted the man's head about and his neck snapped audibly. Killer and victim were no longer face-to-face. A thin trickle of blood began to pool in the corner of the coach driver's mouth then Dracula raked his fangs through the man's throat. The body had crumpled to the earth, a splash of dark red staining the stones. As the moon waned pale Dracula threw back the coach door and deposited Mina within, jumped up upon the driver's seat and whipped the two black stallions into the night.

The carriage wound its way along the mapped road, winding in between the trees and climbing the slight elevation that would bring it up to the border station and then the final journey through the hamlet of Klausenburgh and then up the horseshoe of the Carpathians and between the Borgo Pass. He whipped the animals cruelly till their hearts were almost upon the point of bursting, and within the trap Mina bounced about but felt nothing, stretched upon the upholstery and mercifully insouciant to the night and its terrors.

The Douane was restless in his slumbers having been wracked all night by seizures of coughing. He had a lingering chest infection and it just would not go away; not after herbs nor breathing and rubbing into his chest ointments that smelled like hell. Because he was awake he heard the thunder of hooves approaching along the road. He got out of bed and was about to put on his coat when he heard the crash.

All he could manage was a fairly silly expression of "Huh!" as he grabbed his hat and put it on and adjusted his spectacles. He thought for one ghastly moment that there had been a terrible accident and that a coach had collided with the lowered barrier. When he emerged into the darkness holding his lamp high he saw that a coach had indeed crashed into the black and white boom gate, not only crashed but passed right through leaving it like a broken matchstick. His second silly expression was a lame "Oh!" and he balled a fist and shook it in the direction of the receding coach. When he attempted to produce a useless "Hey!" the exclamation was choked off by a fit of coughing and he clutched at the pain in his chest and spat up a gob of mucus. All he could do now was go find some rope and bind the two pieces together and then have proper repairs made in the morning.

Up the forest road the carriage pulled by the white horses was slowing but Van Helsing did not like to whip the animals too much, he knew he'd need their last strength for the torturous mountain climb to Castle Dracula. They too approached the Douane Station but the Station Master was waiting this time, he had heard the sound of their approach and this time he had loaded his rifle and was not about to let anybody get past. Van Helsing barely saw the man in the feeble lamplight, gesticulating with one hand and making a futile show of his firearm with the other. The Doctor lashed out at the horses flanks with his whip and they too passed through the barrier with a splintering crash. One feeble shot sounded in the air but the bullet might as well have gone in the opposite direction, such was the border master's aim. He watched the coach disappear into the chill darkness then looked back at the broken checkpoint and shook his head. It was too cold out and he'd already fixed it once this evening. He was beyond caring now so he let it lay in splinters on the road, turned his back and coughing violently went back to his bed.

They were on the narrow road to Castle Dracula at last, going up and touching to the seat of God.

"It's getting light." Arthur said and Van Helsing risked a quick glance at the sky. Loose rocks and stones were flying from their wheels, the horses were visibly stressed and the light was coming. Van Helsing doubted that they would make it in time. They passed the roadside shrine and the Virgin Mary watched them with painted eyes. This time Dracula had not blocked the way with boulders, he had not had the time for every moment counted now, each second drawing his unholy undead body closer to the pure and cleansing light of the sun. But the road up was steep and rutted and very precarious and the coach veered so very close to the edge of the fall.

At last Dracula reined in his carriage, leapt from the box and wrenched open the door that separated him from Mina. He knew the light was coming and that if it caught him he would be trapped, but first Mina had to sleep among the dead in a bed of her own grave soil or his prize would be lost. He pulled the woman from the cab and laid her unconscious body upon the cold ground, stalked quickly back to the driver's box and located the spade stored under the seat. He grimaced and whirled about, his cloak a flying storm of restless nightmares and set about digging frantically in the hard ground just before the streamlet where it formed the moat.

The dawn was almost upon them and the castle thrust up like a jutting phallus at the edge of a black world. It seemed to violate, to desecrate the sky, and the sky was a shade lighter than it was a few short moments before making the wild structure a visible silhouette against the backdrop of the valley.

When he was certain the grave was deep enough Dracula threw aside the spade, stooped and lifted Mina up into his arms only to drop her into the pit. She fell as if through the eternity of space, her eyes opening upon the receding mouth of the grave and she wanted to scream but her throat was strangled. Dracula reached for the shovel again and proceeded to bury her, tossing a wad of dirt onto her body, her white gown was darkened, her milky skin smeared. He took another spade full and another and began to fill the hole and Mina awoke at last from her stupor.

And screamed.

She tasted the earth as the dirt struck her but she could not move or claw it from her face, her limbs seemed paralysed, her lips imbibing a tide of grit and loam.

At that very moment Van Helsing's carriage thundered onto the drawbridge between the guardian stone eagles and he pulled it to a stop behind the stolen coach with a shout of "Whoa!"

Dracula looked up. His eyes were fierce and he threw down the shovel.

"Look!" Arthur cried out in horror, pointing to the graveside and the demon cloaked in black that had already begun its ascent to escape, flowing up the drawbridge struts and dashing past both men and coaches. The great doors to Castle Dracula flew wide with a resounding crash and the vampire disappeared within. Van Helsing leapt from his carriage and gave chase.

Frantically Arthur managed the downward slope and began scrabbling with his bare hands in the dark earth in which Mina lay. He had little or no time at all to free her face so that she should breathe and he could not risk using the spade in case he accidentally hurt her. How his heart beat wildly as he threw the earth off, tossing it away as fast as he could and soon he caught a glimpse of Mina's golden crown, her cheek and her lips. She began to regain her life, choking on the dirt in her mouth. Quickly he brushed the filth from her face and pulled her upward.

Dracula bolted through his house like an arrow shot from a loophole. He slid like lightning from shadow to shadow and took to the great staircase, flowing up it like ink spilling backward into a tumbled bottle. Van Helsing felt a rush of freezing, turbulent air as he bounded through the doors but he tracked the vampire with his vision, keeping the monster in sight and following as fast as he could. The light was beginning to alter, even here in these black confines, and the Count knew that if he did not reach sanctuary soon the dawning sun would be lethal and he would be destroyed. Along the gallery he vaulted, and halfway up another flight of stairs that were lost unto shadows. For one brief moment Van Helsing lost sight of his quarry, flinging his body around a turn only to be faced with an empty stairwell. Up the steps Van Helsing began but something stopped him, a sixth sense told him to push wide the throne room door. There was Dracula holding a trapdoor half open that was ready to receive him into an abyss of shadows. The Count let the trap slam down and snatched up the nearest thing he could to launch at the vampire hunter, a golden candle stick that clipped Van Helsing's ear as it whirled past his head.

But in that moment the dark was upon Van Helsing, and it was composed of clays moulded in the underworld and could move ten paces in the blink of an eye. Dracula's steely grasp clamped firmly around Van Helsing's throat and the man felt the breath being squeezed from his lungs.

Dracula bared his row of terrible fangs and smiled in triumph.

Outside Arthur had freed Mina from her grave. He had at last loosened the earth and hauled her from the cold maw of the ground. For a while he held her close and she had coughed up dirt and clung to him and cried. He told her it was all right but she knew it wouldn't be because the vampire was invincible; no man could best such a thing of evil. It had fed upon her blood, she was now part of its being, and although she could not physically see the struggle taking place within the castle, she could sense it. She felt every surge of violent energy that the demon emitted and its every desire to hold and to keep her till eternity. Part of her did not wish Van Helsing to succeed.

In the throne room hunter and quarry grappled around the sphere of the world, and the world spun a shaky revolution. Dracula almost overbalanced the globe, thrusting Van Helsing against it and choking, choking. They did a crippled dance across the marbled floor, crossing the signs of the zodiac as they reeled and Dracula forced Van Helsing back and down till the man was sprawled over the low stool before the fireplace. There was little breath left in Van Helsing, he would faint soon if he did not act quickly.

The Doctor fluttered his eyes and rolled the balls back into their sockets, then he went limp, and the Count strangled the last ounce of air from the vampire hunter's lungs. In that moment of victory Dracula pulled his fanged visage back and slightly relaxed his grip. It was all that Van Helsing needed, that one fleeting second in time in which, with all the strength he could muster, he broke the vampire's stranglehold and threw the monster back against the fireplace. In the Coat of Arms above the ashes the Dragons responded, seemed to awake beside their shield. With a wild eye Van Helsing saw them move and stretch limbs that had long been imprisoned in stone. It was an optical illusion surely and one meant to distract him, to take his eyes from the quarry. He took in a gulp of air and massaged his throat and quickly looked away and locked his gaze on the Count.

The vampire began to stalk its prey.

It moved by inches, tall and fluid, and it could have been mistaken for a mirage. Dust motes in the air began to whirl and to gather into his cloak, forming some otherworldly solidity of shape and appearance that was not human. The demon was subtly altering. As this occurred the vampire slithered ever so much closer to Van Helsing and as he watched he realised he needed a weapon to defend himself but dared not take his eyes from the creature. It was metamorphosing, becoming a phantasm of serous flesh and darkly aeriform. Evil incarnate, alive and even more dangerous than it had been before. Yet there was a surreal grace to this damned thing, the closer it came the more seductive its power and Van Helsing began to drink in the beauty of its form. His body trembled and he was pierced by the strangest arrow of excitement, goaded no less by the thrill of the danger. He could smell the vampire; smell no longer the foul corruption of death but a bittersweet perfume of muscle and sinew and blood. It was serpentine, lithe and sinuous, majestic in all its glory, comprised of the elements and somehow faultless for it. Van Helsing seemed to know, to feel an unaccountable respect for the creature, but he knew he had to destroy it.

Dracula moved closer, confident that his next step would snare the prey and that the vampire slayer would fall. Van Helsing could see tiny the reflections of himself in the creature's red, burning eyes and the demon began to slough its skin, dropping flesh-like scales in a cascade of falling stars and black fire. Time began to slow and the dawn began to shrivel away and Van Helsing felt his blood singing in his veins. He was at the brink of offering his own throat to the creature, to be as one with it and to know the ultimate existence, to know all of life's secrets and those of death too and be like unto a God. His heart was racing and near bursting. It was a glorious promise that the demon offered, to exist for all eternity, until the very sun collapsed and never know pain or remorse, to sample every delight that the dark world could make possible.

Van Helsing shook his head as if to clear it of all these sick and befouled thoughts, and then backing away he bumped into the corner of the long table. Looking up he beheld a sliver of sunlight breaking through a crack where the heavy drapes across the window did not meet.

Dracula's visage changed from one of victory to one of abject horror.

Van Helsing sprang up onto the table and bounded down its length, and the Creature leapt aside like a cat but the mouse had evaded its teeth. Ancient tomes went skidding left to right and Van Helsing, reaching the end of the table launched himself into the air and grabbed hold of the thick draperies, bringing them tearing down with the weight of his body.

Sunlight flooded the throne room. Violently the Count threw himself backward to evade the light but collided with the table and slipped. A searing blade of supernal light sliced viciously across the demon's right leg, instantly shrivelling the leather of his boot and setting fire to his garb. The skin about his ankle crisped and blistered and became as bone and Dracula screamed. The cry was a sound that only the damned could make; it erupted from the monster's tongue raw and intense and shattered the glass in the window.

Outside Arthur and Mina covered their ears.

Van Helsing quickly snatched up a candlestick and then racing to the opposite end of the table he grabbed another, brandishing each, laying one across the other, fashioning the symbol of the holy cross, holding it up before the screaming creature and branding it in golden shadow.

The Dragons above the fireplace seized once more into stone, they withered and turned to skeletal remains in the Coat Of Arms.

Daylight caught the black creature in a flood of luminance, peeling away the useless hindrance of human-like flesh and revealing the monster that had always festered within. It opened its mouth and spat flame. No name in the tongue of man could have described the thing.

The marble floor cracked under the sere of incendiary sparks; heat split a long fissure directly between Van Helsing's feet. The vampire hunter only pressed closer, the heat was intense but he remained steadfast and held his makeshift cross high. A terrible, howling wind tore a maelstrom about the room, ripping the tapestries from their rods and whipping the coloured pennants into a mad flapping storm of malice. The wind churned upward into the vaulted heights and lightning tipped clouds blackened the ceiling. The creature on the floor shrieked in the spill of sunlight, forced back as the light sparked from the cross and it shielded its baleful eyes from the holy radiance.

Outside the keep the sun widened its arc over the horizon, spilling a golden wave into the throne room and with one step Van Helsing was lit from head to toe in a luminance that made his body scintillate with sparks, ringed him with a halo; the cross he brandished flared with a light that would have blinded any mortal eye.

Arthur held Mina close and both trembled at the cacophony thundering from within. Above them the stone raptor atop its obelisk shuddered and a crack ripped through its pylon, going straight to the centre of the earth.

Throwing out an arm Dracula writhed in agony and Van Helsing watched in awe as the hand sloughed its skin; became a monstrous flapping winged appendage and ignited. From the clouds boiling in the upward reaches lightning was flashing, the atmospheres whirling and taking on a shape that was spellbindingly beautiful and yet dreadful in its wonder. The Doctor looked up, he had to see. The vision was like unto a spirit, a thing that did not belong to tenuity, an entity that unfolded huge wings, arched and veined with lightning. It beat its wings angrily and opened the cavernous abyss of its mouth, ready to spew planet-fire down upon Van Helsing's flesh.

The monster bellowed as it was caught in the golden fire and Van Helsing thought he saw a glimpse of the matter from which the universe was made. Its eyes flickered, a scintillating kaleidoscope of darkness and ruby reds. The winged fantasy let loose its fire and it bathed Van Helsing, wrapping his body in blue flame. Yet the fire did not touch the man, it did not tear away his skin and there was no agony. For the mortal there was protection in the sun's rays, in the darkness there was none. Van Helsing felt the sun vivifying his every sinew and muscle so that the cross he had made from the candlesticks melded and fused and became a sword of light that he plunged deep into the heart of the vampire.

At that very instant it began to descend into a pile of fine dust. The vampire's flesh commenced to stream smoke and to collapse into itself, ashes became its hands and its feet, coals expiring became it's once flame red eyes. It became what it always had been, something of the elements, the dust of the earth, expiring on the symbol of Aquarius. The raging atmospheres were then suddenly quite still, the monster's wings shrivelled and its chest cavity caved in. It put a disintegrating claw up to an unrecognisable face and the passing of countless centuries ravaged its flesh in the space of a second.

The candlesticks fell apart and clattered separate to the floor.

Then all was hushed.

This spectacle Van Helsing watched with awe and when it has ceased he took a deep breath and crossed to the shattered window and looked out. He could see Arthur and Mina huddled together in the rose-gold tint of the dawn. Arthur had retrieved a rug from the gig and had placed it over Mina's lap. A fresh breeze blew in through the smashed aperture, it was chilly but no longer deathly cold, swirling a stray lank of hair and Dracula's ashes away and scattering them as it did so.

Nothing remained of the demon, nothing save the strange ring it had worn. There was no light in the black stone now and the Dragon within had calcified into bleached white bones.

Arthur looked back at the castle, at its edifice of evil and malignancy.

Inside the throne-room Van Helsing turned away from the scattering of ashes. He glanced down at the ring but he did not pick it up. There was something irrevocably evil about the thing. The monster that had worn it had darkened a part of his soul that should have remained stainless and touching something that had belonged to the creature was utterly abhorrent.

Holmwood knew the monster had been vanquished; he removed his coat and slipped it over Mina's shoulders. She was shivering as he held up her hand. The raw cruciform brand that had marked her palm paled and faded away as if it had never been.

Mina looked at the smooth white cup of her hand and Arthur kissed her on the lips.

She felt the kiss and she understood that he loved her, but in her heart she was filled with blue darknesses.

149

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End file.
